Technique
Tool Use
Letting an LLM invoke external tools â APIs, code execution, search â during generation.
Definition
Tool use extends an LLM beyond its weights by giving it a catalogue of callable functions: web search, code interpreter, custom APIs. The model decides which tool to call, with what arguments, and consumes the response. Function calling is the mechanism, tool use is the discipline.
Common use cases
- Live data
- Computation
- Multi-system orchestration