Tool-selection Failure
A failure to select an appropriate tool or action needed for a task, instead choosing something incorrect, unnecessary, or insufficient.
Example
Current inventory must be checked, but the system selects an outdated local note rather than a means of retrieving up-to-date stock information.
Distinctions and cautions
Tool-selection Failure concerns what to use. Giving a selected tool invalid arguments, invoking it incorrectly, or misreading the returned result is Tool-use Failure. Failure to arrange actions in a workable order is Planning Failure.
Evidence
View evidence →
API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs
- Title
- API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs
- Author / organization
- Li et al.
- Year
- 2023
- Source type / publication status
- EMNLP peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Planning, Tool-selection, Tool-use.
- Scope and limitations
- 73 tools, 314 dialogues and 753 calls; 2023 model set.
- Access / version note
- Published EMNLP.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2023.emnlp-main.187(DOI resolver)
ACEBench
- Title
- ACEBench
- Author / organization
- Chen et al.
- Year
- 2025
- Source type / publication status
- Findings EMNLP peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Tool-selection and Tool-use errors.
- Scope and limitations
- Benchmark-defined tasks; taxonomy depends on benchmark design.
- Access / version note
- Published Findings EMNLP.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2025.findings-emnlp.697(DOI resolver)
SMART: Self-Aware Agent for Tool Overuse Mitigation
- Title
- SMART: Self-Aware Agent for Tool Overuse Mitigation
- Author / organization
- Qian et al.
- Year
- 2025
- Source type / publication status
- Findings ACL peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Unnecessary tool selection and mitigation.
- Scope and limitations
- Tested tool-overuse situations; tool overuse is one subpattern, not all Tool-selection Failure.
- Access / version note
- Published Findings ACL.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2025.findings-acl.239(DOI resolver)
EVOTOOL
- Title
- EVOTOOL
- Author / organization
- Yang et al.
- Year
- 2026
- Source type / publication status
- ACL peer-reviewed research; published
- Supported concepts / claim context
- Planner/selector/caller distinctions and cross-module propagation.
- Scope and limitations
- Modular architecture; not a universal architecture.
- Access / version note
- Published ACL.
- Recorded official URL / DOI / identifier
- DOI:
10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.2016(DOI resolver)