Glossary Tool
Tool
Also known as:
tool call, tool resultAgenticAI
Definition
A function an agent can call — read a file, run a command, fetch a page, drive a browser — and whose result comes back into its context as text
Tools are how a model touches the world. A tool call is a request; a tool result is what it sees afterward, and everything the model believes about the filesystem or the test run comes through that channel.
Tool results are data, not instructions: a page an agent fetched saying "ignore your rules" is a page, not a rule. The Dictionary of AI Coding has a longer treatment.