CCARF Practice Question

Paper 3 · Question 26

D2 Tool Design & MCP Integration · Paper 3

[Scenario 3: Multi-Agent Research System] A coordinator agent built on the Claude Agent SDK delegates to specialized subagents — web search, document analysis, synthesis, and report generation — to research topics and produce comprehensive, cited reports. Every subagent currently receives the full 18-tool catalog. Logs show the synthesis agent attempting web searches and the search agent trying document parsing — with frequent wrong-tool selections everywhere. What is the correct redesign?

• A.Add a nineteenth tool that tells the agents which tool to use
• B.Alphabetize the tool list so selection is easier
• C.Write longer system prompts warning each agent about the tools it should ignore
• D.Scope each subagent's tool set to its role — a handful of relevant tools each — since large tool inventories degrade selection reliability and out-of-role tools invite misuse

Show answer & explanations

Correct answer: D

A: adds selection complexity to solve selection complexity

B: changes ordering, not decision difficulty

C: asks prompts to fight an inventory problem configuration should fix

D: Tool distribution is an architectural control: agents choose more reliably among 4–5 role-relevant tools than among 18, and tools outside an agent's specialization are misused precisely because they are available.

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