Your Agent Doesn't Like Your APIs

Every API you've shipped was designed for a human reading docs. Agents don't read docs - they load your entire tool schema into a context window every call, then burn tokens guessing which endpoint to try.

Take a standard accounting API — clean REST, solid docs, every endpoint you'd expect. Point an agent at it with one task: get an invoice status. Watch it burn through tokens, pick the wrong endpoints, and maybe even give up. I'll demo this failure live, then rebuild it into a handful of outcome-oriented tools — and the same query that 'failed' now works in a single call at a fraction of the cost.

The fix isn't adding more endpoints or better docs. It's rethinking what a "tool" means when your consumer is an LLM, not a developer. These design principles have emerged in teams building agent-facing APIs keep converging on the same patterns, and they look nothing like good REST design.