Create Custom Tools

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Creating and Utilizing Tools in CrewAI

This guide provides detailed instructions on creating custom tools for the CrewAI framework and how to efficiently manage and utilize these tools, incorporating the latest functionalities such as tool delegation, error handling, and dynamic tool calling. It also highlights the importance of collaboration tools, enabling agents to perform a wide range of actions.

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Subclassing BaseTool

To create a personalized tool, inherit from BaseTool and define the necessary attributes, including the args_schema for input validation, and the _run method.

from typing import Type
from crewai.tools import BaseTool
from pydantic import BaseModel, Field

class MyToolInput(BaseModel):
    """Input schema for MyCustomTool."""
    argument: str = Field(..., description="Description of the argument.")

class MyCustomTool(BaseTool):
    name: str = "Name of my tool"
    description: str = "What this tool does. It's vital for effective utilization."
    args_schema: Type[BaseModel] = MyToolInput

    def _run(self, argument: str) -> str:
        # Your tool's logic here
        return "Tool's result"

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Using the tool Decorator

Alternatively, you can use the tool decorator @tool. This approach allows you to define the tool’s attributes and functionality directly within a function, offering a concise and efficient way to create specialized tools tailored to your needs.

from crewai.tools import tool

@tool("Tool Name")
def my_simple_tool(question: str) -> str:
    """Tool description for clarity."""
    # Tool logic here
    return "Tool output"

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Defining a Cache Function for the Tool

To optimize tool performance with caching, define custom caching strategies using the cache_function attribute.

@tool("Tool with Caching")
def cached_tool(argument: str) -> str:
    """Tool functionality description."""
    return "Cacheable result"

def my_cache_strategy(arguments: dict, result: str) -> bool:
    # Define custom caching logic
    return True if some_condition else False

cached_tool.cache_function = my_cache_strategy

By adhering to these guidelines and incorporating new functionalities and collaboration tools into your tool creation and management processes, you can leverage the full capabilities of the CrewAI framework, enhancing both the development experience and the efficiency of your AI agents.