tool-use-guardian
Makes your agent handle tool failures better. It monitors, retries, and fixes errors. Ensures tasks continue even with unexpected technical issues.
What it does
This is an assistant that helps ensure the tools an AI uses work correctly. It retries failing calls, fixes broken responses, and learns which tools are unreliable.
When to use it
- ✓When a tool returns incomplete or malformed data.
- ✓When a tool takes too long to respond or is temporarily blocked.
- ✓When a sequence of tasks fails midway.
Example of what to ask your AI
“Retry calling the weather lookup tool, it's returning an error.”
Want more? Open the sections below.
How to use
The easiest way: copy the message below and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any AI. It reads the skill and follows the instructions.
Skill link
Ready-to-paste message
How it works
Before using a tool, it checks if everything is correct. If the tool fails, it tries to fix it or call it again, learning from mistakes to prevent future problems.
Installation
Easiest way: copy the skill link and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor asking it to follow the instructions.
In the terminal (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), in your project folder:
npx skills add sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills --skill tool-use-guardianOr download just the file:
curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sickn33/agentic-awesome-skills/main/plugins/agentic-awesome-skills-claude/skills/tool-use-guardian/SKILL.md -o SKILL.mdTechnical content (original SKILL.md)
Original text by the author, straight from GitHub.
Tool Use Guardian
Overview
The reliability wrapper every AI agent needs. Monitors tool calls, auto-retries failures, fixes truncated responses, and learns which tools are unreliable — so you never lose your chain of thought.
Free forever. Built by the Genesis Agent Marketplace.
Install
npx skills add christopherlhammer11-ai/tool-use-guardian
When to Use This Skill
- Use when tool calls return truncated or malformed JSON
- Use when APIs timeout or rate-limit your agent mid-task
- Use when a multi-step chain breaks partway through
- Use when you need automatic retry logic without writing it yourself
- Use for any agent workflow that depends on external tool reliability
How It Works
Step 1: Pre-Call Validation
Before every tool call, Guardian validates:
- Required parameters are present and correctly typed
- The tool is not marked as "unreliable" from previous failures
- Request size is within known limits
Step 2: Failure Classification
When a tool call fails, Guardian classifies the failure into one of 9 categories:
| Failure Type | Recovery Action |
|---|---|
| Truncated JSON | Re-fetch with pagination or smaller chunks |
| API Timeout | Retry once with simpler request, then decompose |
| Rate Limit (429) | Exponential backoff, max 3 retries |
| Auth Expired | Flag for user intervention |
| Mid-chain Break | Resume from last successful checkpoint |
| Error-as-200 | Detect {"error": "..."} disguised as success |
| Schema Mismatch | Attempt auto-coercion, warn if lossy |
| Network Failure | Retry with jitter, max 2 attempts |
| Unknown Error | Log full context, escalate to user |
Step 3: Chain Protection
For multi-step tool chains, Guardian maintains checkpoints. If step 4 of 7 fails, it resumes from step 4 — never restarts from scratch.
Step 4: Learning
Guardian tracks failure patterns per tool. After 3+ failures of the same type, it marks the tool as unreliable and suggests alternatives.
Best Practices
- ✅ Let Guardian wrap all external tool calls automatically
- ✅ Review Guardian's reliability reports to identify flaky tools
- ✅ Use checkpoint recovery for long chains
- ❌ Don't disable retry logic for rate-limited APIs
- ❌ Don't ignore repeated failure warnings
Related Skills
@recallmax- Long-context memory enhancement (also free from Genesis Marketplace)
Links
- Repo: https://github.com/christopherlhammer11-ai/tool-use-guardian
- Marketplace: https://genesis-node-api.vercel.app
- Browse skills: https://genesis-marketplace.vercel.app
Limitations
- Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above.
- Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
- Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing.
FAQ
What happens if a tool fails?
It tries to fix the response, calls the tool again, or learns that the tool is unreliable and suggests another.
What is 'chain of thought'?
It's the sequence of steps an AI follows to complete a task. If one step fails, the AI can get lost. This assistant helps keep the sequence running.
Is it safe to use?
Yes, it's designed to make the AI's interactions with other tools more reliable and secure.
Details
Original description by the author
FREE — Intelligent tool-call reliability wrapper. Monitors, retries, fixes, and learns from tool failures. Auto-recovers from truncated JSON, timeouts, rate limits, and mid-chain failures.
Popularity
- GitHub stars
- 48k
- Ranking position
- #4390
- License
- MIT
- Updated
- 10/15/2026
Comments
- …
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