> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://graph.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How the agent picks tools

> Routing between direct calls, your plans, and on-the-fly planning

When you ask something, the agent chooses among everything in the catalog: direct tool calls, your plan tools, and `plan_and_execute`. The choice is the model's — but you have real influence over it.

## The routing heuristics

* **Simple lookups** → direct tool calls. "List my urgent issues" is one `linear__list_issues` call; no plan needed.
* **Queries matching a plan's purpose** → the plan tool. The agent reads each plan's `description` and `exemplars`, so "how's the sprint going?" routes to `plan__sprint_analysis` when those exemplars say exactly that.
* **Novel multi-step tasks** → [`plan_and_execute`](/plans/the-planner), which authors and runs a validated plan with dataflow between steps.

The agent also **recovers across layers**: if a plan tool fails (missing inputs, a dead step), it can fall back to direct tool calls and still answer — you'll see that in the tool trace.

## Steering the router

1. **Write exemplars like your users talk.** Exemplars are folded into the plan tool's description verbatim — they're the strongest routing signal:
   ```yaml theme={null}
   exemplars:
     - "How is the New Relic migration going?"
     - "Where do things stand on <project>?"
   ```
2. **Make descriptions contrastive.** If two plans overlap, say when to use which ("…for teams that track work by *project*, not cycles").
3. **Force it when it matters.** Naming the plan works reliably in conversation ("run the project\_status plan for X"), and `graph plan run` bypasses routing entirely — the guaranteed path for automation.
4. **Trim the catalog.** Per-server `include_tools`/`exclude_tools` in `[mcp.*]` config keeps irrelevant tools out of the agent's context — fewer distractors, better choices.

## Verifying what happened

The stderr trace shows routing live (`→ plan__project_status …` vs bare `linear__*` calls), and [`graph threads show`](/using/threads) preserves it after the fact. If the agent keeps improvising where a plan should fire, the fix is almost always sharper exemplars.


## Related topics

- [Agent steps](/plans/agent-step.md)
- [Quickstart](/getting-started/quickstart.md)
- [What is a plan](/plans/overview.md)
- [The shape cache](/tools/shape-cache.md)
- [The planner](/plans/the-planner.md)