Tool Connection

How a model that can only produce text comes to act through connected tools: the description it reads, the request it writes and the result it receives; what changes once a tool can act rather than only fetch; and why any text arriving through a connection can carry instructions the model cannot reliably tell from data.

1. 01What a connection isA model alone only produces text. A connection is the channel that turns its written request into an action and brings the result back as text: the description it reads, the request it writes, the result it receives.about 7 minutes
2. 02How a model knows what tools it hasThe description is the model's only knowledge of a tool; it never sees the tool itself. Why description quality decides whether and how a tool gets used, why too many or overlapping tools produce wrong picks, and what happens when the task does not supply a value the tool needs.about 8 minutes
3. 03Reading what comes backResults arrive as text and the model must judge whether they answered the request: empty, partial, error, stale and oversized results, and why a failed connection often looks like a confident answer.about 7 minutes
4. 04Reading tools and acting toolsThe split that decides risk: fetching something against doing something, reversible against irreversible, giving the least access that does the job, and where an approval point belongs.about 8 minutes
5. 05Connecting many tools the same wayCustom wiring for every tool-and-system pair against a shared standard where the tool describes itself once and any system that speaks the standard can use it, and what a standard does not do: make a tool safe or a description good.about 7 minutes
6. 06Prompt injectionAny text reaching the model through a connection can carry instructions, and the model cannot reliably tell instruction from data. Direct and indirect injection, why it cannot be prompted away, and what limits it: fewer acting tools, separating reading from acting, approvals on consequential actions.about 9 minutes
7. 07What a tool can seeData flows both ways: what the model sends out through a connection, what the tool's provider receives and keeps, trust in that provider as part of the system, and local against remote connections.about 7 minutes
8. 08Choosing a tool setFewer tools, better described, matched to the task; how readily to let the model reach for them; and when a tool is the wrong answer because the information belongs in the prompt.about 7 minutes

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