mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

EASYTOOL: Enhancing LLM-based Agents with Concise Tool Instruction

arXiv 2401.06201 ↗First posted 11 Jan 2024cs.CLcited by 153

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling

Abstract (arXiv)

To address intricate real-world tasks, there has been a rising interest in tool utilization in applications of large language models (LLMs). To develop LLM-based agents, it usually requires LLMs to understand many tool functions from different tool documentation. But these documentations could be diverse, redundant or incomplete, which immensely affects the capability of LLMs in using tools. To solve this, we introduce EASYTOOL, a framework transforming diverse and lengthy tool documentation into a unified and concise tool instruction for easier tool usage. EasyTool purifies essential information from extensive tool documentation of different sources, and elaborates a unified interface (i.e., tool instruction) to offer standardized tool descriptions and functionalities for LLM-based agents. Extensive experiments on multiple different tasks demonstrate that EasyTool can significantly reduce token consumption and improve the performance of tool utilization in real-world scenarios. Our code will be available at urlhttps://github.com/microsoft/JARVIS/ in the future.

Key facts. Cited by 153 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 16 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Jan 2024.

Builds on

16 of 39 references.

Closest ancestors · 7

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Don't Fine-Tune, Decode: Syntax Error-Free Tool Use via Constrained Decoding10 Oct
  2. 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs31 Jul
  3. 2023ToolAlpaca: Generalized Tool Learning for Language Models with 3000 Simulated Cases8 Jun
  4. 2023Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIs24 May
  5. 2023ToolkenGPT: Augmenting Frozen Language Models with Massive Tools via Tool Embeddings19 May
  6. 2023API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs14 Apr
  7. 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools9 Feb

Other references · 9

  1. 2018BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understandingcited by 40,204
  2. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
  3. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
  4. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  5. 2023FActScore: Fine-grained Atomic Evaluation of Factual Precision in Long Form Text Generationcited by 1,259
  6. 2023TaskBench: Benchmarking Large Language Models for Task Automationcited by 138
  7. 2023RestGPT: Connecting Large Language Models with Real-World RESTful APIscited by 129
  8. 2023ToolChain*: Efficient Action Space Navigation in Large Language Models with A* Searchcited by 103
  9. 2022Prompt Compression and Contrastive Conditioning for Controllability and Toxicity Reduction in Language Modelscited by 96

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 33; 2025: 65; 2026: 55.

153 papers.

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  1. 2024A Survey on Knowledge Distillation of Large Language Modelscited by 276
  2. 2025Model Context Protocol (MCP): Landscape, Security Threats, and Future Research Directionscited by 257
  3. 2024Data Interpreter: An LLM Agent For Data Sciencecited by 222
  4. 2024Tool Learning with Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 221
  5. 2024From Persona to Personalization: A Survey on Role-Playing Language Agentscited by 206
  6. 2025Large Language Model Agent: A Survey on Methodology, Applications and Challengescited by 194
  7. 2025AI Agents vs. Agentic AI: A Conceptual Taxonomy, Applications and Challengescited by 167
  8. 2025Prompt Injection Attack to Tool Selection in LLM Agentscited by 145
  9. 2025A Comprehensive Survey in LLM(-Agent) Full Stack Safety: Data, Training and Deploymentcited by 110
  10. 2024EvoAgent: Towards Automatic Multi-Agent Generation via Evolutionary Algorithmscited by 109
  11. 2025Agentic Large Language Models, a surveycited by 105
  12. 2025Lifelong Learning of Large Language Model based Agents: A Roadmapcited by 78
38 more
  1. 2024Beyond Browsing: API-Based Web Agentscited by 77
  2. 2024EHRAgent: Code Empowers Large Language Models for Few-shot Complex Tabular Reasoning on Electronic Health Recordscited by 75
  3. 2025From AI for Science to Agentic Science: A Survey on Autonomous Scientific Discoverycited by 74
  4. 2025A Survey of LLM-Driven AI Agent Communication: Protocols, Security Risks, and Defense Countermeasurescited by 54
  5. 2024Re-Invoke: Tool Invocation Rewriting for Zero-Shot Tool Retrievalcited by 50
  6. 2024Large Language Models Can Solve Real-World Planning Rigorously with Formal Verification Toolscited by 47
  7. 2026A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agentscited by 47
  8. 2024From Exploration to Mastery: Enabling LLMs to Master Tools via Self-Driven Interactionscited by 46
  9. 2024Formal-LLM: Integrating Formal Language and Natural Language for Controllable LLM-based Agentscited by 39
  10. 2025AgentArmor: Enforcing Program Analysis on Agent Runtime Trace to Defend Against Prompt Injectioncited by 39
  11. 2024TravelAgent: An AI Assistant for Personalized Travel Planningcited by 38
  12. 2024Benchmarking Agentic Workflow Generationcited by 36
  13. 2025ScaleMCP: Dynamic and Auto-Synchronizing Model Context Protocol Tools for LLM Agentscited by 36
  14. 2025GUARDIAN: Safeguarding LLM Multi-Agent Collaborations with Temporal Graph Modelingcited by 35
  15. 2024Foundation Models for Music: A Surveycited by 34
  16. 2025From Language to Action: A Review of Large Language Models as Autonomous Agents and Tool Userscited by 32
  17. 2025A Survey of Large Language Model Empowered Agents for Recommendation and Search: Towards Next-Generation Information Retrievalcited by 31
  18. 2024Exploring Autonomous Agents through the Lens of Large Language Models: A Reviewcited by 30
  19. 2024Speech-Copilot: Leveraging Large Language Models for Speech Processing via Task Decomposition, Modularization, and Program Generationcited by 27
  20. 2024Towards Completeness-Oriented Tool Retrieval for Large Language Modelscited by 26
  21. 2024Planning with Multi-Constraints via Collaborative Language Agentscited by 26
  22. 2024Toolshed: Scale Tool-Equipped Agents with Advanced RAG-Tool Fusion and Tool Knowledge Basescited by 23
  23. 2024Efficient and Scalable Estimation of Tool Representations in Vector Spacecited by 22
  24. 2025O2-Searcher: A Searching-based Agent Model for Open-Domain Open-Ended Question Answeringcited by 22
  25. 2025Advancing Tool-Augmented Large Language Models via Meta-Verification and Reflection Learningcited by 22
  26. 2025UItron: Foundational GUI Agent with Advanced Perception and Planningcited by 22
  27. 2026EvoTool: Self-Evolving Tool-Use Policy Optimization in LLM Agents via Blame-Aware Mutation and Diversity-Aware Selectioncited by 22
  28. 2024"A good pun is its own reword": Can Large Language Models Understand Puns?cited by 21
  29. 2025Beyond the Final Answer: Evaluating the Reasoning Trajectories of Tool-Augmented Agentscited by 20
  30. 2025The Lighthouse of Language: Enhancing LLM Agents via Critique-Guided Improvementcited by 19
  31. 2025CRITICTOOL: Evaluating Self-Critique Capabilities of Large Language Models in Tool-Calling Error Scenarioscited by 19
  32. 2025Towards AI Search Paradigmcited by 19
  33. 2025ToolScope: Enhancing LLM Agent Tool Use through Tool Merging and Context-Aware Filteringcited by 19
  34. 2025ToolFuzz -- Automated Agent Tool Testingcited by 18
  35. 2024Enhancing Tool Retrieval with Iterative Feedback from Large Language Modelscited by 17
  36. 2025Mobile-R1: Towards Interactive Capability for VLM-Based Mobile Agent via Systematic Trainingcited by 17
  37. 2026A Comprehensive Survey on Agent Skills: Taxonomy, Techniques, and Applicationscited by 17
  38. 2025Divide-Then-Aggregate: An Efficient Tool Learning Method via Parallel Tool Invocationcited by 16

50 most cited of 153 All 153 (JSON)

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  1. 2024Tool Learning in the Wild: Empowering Language Models as Automatic Tool Agents
  2. 2025AutoTool: Efficient Tool Selection for Large Language Model Agents
  3. 2024LLM With Tools: A Survey
  4. 2026ToolMenuBench: Benchmarking Tool-Menu Filtering Strategies for Reliable and Efficient LLM Agents
  5. 2026Harness Engineering in LLM Tool Use via Agent-Native Reusable Tool Primitives
  6. 2026The Evolution of Tool Use in LLM Agents: From Single-Tool Call to Multi-Tool Orchestration
  7. 2024Large Language Model-Based Agents for Software Engineering: A Survey
  8. 2025Tool Preferences in Agentic LLMs are Unreliable