Tool Chaining
Wiring tools together so the agent can pass work from one to the next without a human in between.
Think of it like
Setting up dominoes — knock the first and the rest fall in order, no touching required.
Example
A pipeline where a transcription tool hands text to a translation tool, which hands it to a summarizer, all in one automated pass.
How it actually works
Tool chaining is the practice of connecting tools into flows, whether hardcoded or decided on the fly by the model. Fixed chains are predictable and testable; model-decided chains are flexible but harder to trust. The engineering challenge is matching output formats between links so nothing gets lost or mangled in the handoff — the plumbing between tools is where chains usually leak.
For product teams
Automating a multi-tool workflow is where real time gets saved — and where brittle glue hides.
For engineers
Composing tools into a pipeline, statically or dynamically, aligning each output format to the next input.
Related
- Chain of Tools — The chain viewed as flowing data.
- Orchestration — The layer that manages the wiring.
- Tool Calling — The individual calls being chained.
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