Function Calling

Estimate the token tax a single tool round-trip adds compared with an inline answer

Walk through one training example for SFT'ing a single weather-tool call.

In MCP, what exactly is a 'tool' and who decides when to call it?

A 40-team org already has OpenAPI specs and three LLM providers. Defend layering MCP on top instead of picking one integration approach.

Your colleague says MCP and function calling do the same thing. Where are they wrong?

Flashcard: why connect agents through MCP?

How does function calling enable the observe-plan-act agent loop?

Flashcard: what is a tool in an LLM agent?

Flashcard: what does it mean when an LLM 'makes a tool call'?

Tool-calling fine-tune: data shape and the common pitfall

Compare MCP and vendor function calling: what layer does each occupy and when would you use both?

Which statement correctly describes the relationship between MCP and vendor function calling?

At which architectural layer does MCP sit versus vendor function calling?

Which statements correctly describe the MCP primitive types?

Compare OpenAI function calling, Anthropic tool use, and ReAct free-form text as agent tool-invocation mechanisms

Match each tool-invocation mechanism to its defining characteristic

What problem does MCP solve that function-calling alone does not?

What does the Model Context Protocol (MCP) uniquely enable that provider-native function calling does not?

How does MCP differ from OpenAI-style function calling?

What is the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and what problem does it solve?