TDQS — Tool Definition Quality Score

Score how well your MCP tools speak to agents.

The description is the only thing an agent reads before it picks a tool. TDQS grades every definition on six weighted dimensions, explains each point, and turns the result into a tier you can gate a release on — the same numbers in your terminal, in CI, and across Glama's registry.

Try the playgroundnpx mcp-tdqs

1. Stage 1

   Context signals

   Deterministic code reads the schema and annotations: parameter coverage, output schema, behavioural hints, invocation cost, and a hash so the same definition always scores the same.

2. Stage 2

   Hard gates

   Degenerate definitions — no description, a name restated as a sentence — short-circuit with a flag and a floor score. No model call is spent on them.

3. Stage 3

   Rubric

   A model grades six dimensions from 1 to 5 against published anchors, and writes a justification for every point. The prompts are the specification, byte for byte.

4. Stage 4

   Post-processing

   Overrides, flags and smells are applied by code, the weights roll up in integer arithmetic, and the result is a score, a tier, and the reasons.

1. A≥ 3.5genuinely helpful definition
2. B≥ 3.0adequate, the passing bar
3. C≥ 2.0clear gaps
4. D≥ 1.0severely deficient
5. F< 1.0reserved guard tier