Chain of Tools
Using several tools in sequence, where each one’s output feeds the next.
Think of it like
An assembly line — one station’s finished part becomes the raw material for the next.
Example
The agent searches for a company, feeds the result into a scraper, then pipes that into a summarizer — three tools, one flow.
How it actually works
Chaining lets an agent solve problems no single tool can, by composing them: search then read then compute, each step consuming the last result. The reliability question is the whole chain, not each link — an early error propagates and compounds, so a good search feeding a bad extractor still yields garbage. Longer chains are more capable and more fragile at once.
For product teams
Composing tools unlocks bigger tasks, but every added link is another place to break.
For engineers
Sequential tool invocations where each output becomes the next call’s input, forming a data pipeline.
Related
- Tool Chaining — The near-synonym for wiring tools together.
- Tool Calling — A single link in the chain.
- Tool Result — The result that flows to the next tool.
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