CCARF Practice Question

Paper 1 · Question 41

D2 Tool Design & MCP Integration · Paper 1

A team's agent must generate a weekly report on the first turn of each conversation by calling `generate_report`. With `tool_choice: 'auto'`, the agent sometimes responds with a text summary instead. The team wants to guarantee `generate_report` is called on turn one while allowing normal tool selection afterwards. What is the correct configuration?

• A.Set tool_choice to 'any' for all turns so the agent always calls a tool.
• B.Set tool_choice to forced selection of generate_report for the first turn, then switch to 'auto' for subsequent turns.
• C.Add a system prompt instruction stating 'Always call generate_report first' and keep tool_choice on 'auto'.
• D.Remove all tools except generate_report from the first turn's tool list, then add the remaining tools for subsequent turns.

Show answer & explanations

Correct answer: B

A: 'any' forces a tool call but does not guarantee which tool is called. The agent might call a different tool on the first turn. Additionally, forcing tool calls on every subsequent turn prevents normal text responses.

B: Forced selection with the specific tool name guarantees generate_report is called on the first turn. Switching to 'auto' afterwards restores normal behaviour where the model decides whether and which tools to call.

C: System prompt instructions are advisory, not enforced. With 'auto', the model can still choose to respond with text instead of calling the tool. This does not guarantee the mandatory first step.

D: While this would work, dynamically modifying the tool list between turns is unnecessarily complex. Forced tool_choice selection achieves the same guarantee with a simpler configuration change.

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