Tool Result Parsing

Robust Tool Result Parsing: Error Handling and Schema Enforcement in Production Agents

Production agents interact with real APIs that return errors, empty results, malformed JSON, and rate limit responses. Building a robust tool result parsing layer — with typed schemas, error classification, retry logic, and graceful degradation — is what separates reliable agents from brittle demos.

What is Tool Result Parsing in AI Agents?

When an AI agent calls a tool — a web search, a database query, an API — it gets back raw data. Tool result parsing is the process of converting that raw output into a format the agent can reason about and act on. Poor parsing is one of the most common causes of agent failure in production systems.