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MCP server for searching IEEE Xplore papers and retrieving details including abstracts
Single tool with adequate naming (search_ieee) and basic parameter schema. Description is present (89 chars) but lacks LLM-optimized guidance on when/why to use it. Parameters have types and descriptions, but output schema is undocumented, tool returns JSON string, not structured object. No error recovery guidance. No parameter constraints (enums, ranges). Missing idempotency and rate-limit documentation. Baseline: 194 chars avg description, 100% A+ tools document output schema.
Search for papers on IEEE Xplore and retrieve details including abstracts.
Output schema undocumented. Tool returns JSON string; LLM cannot infer field structure (title, authors, abstract, url, etc.) without parsing. Violates pattern:tool requirement that output schema be documented.
Description lacks LLM-optimized guidance. 89 chars is below baseline (194 avg). Missing: WHEN to use (vs. other search tools), WHAT it returns, prerequisites (IEEE access?), rate limits. LLM cannot determine if this is the right tool.
No parameter constraints. 'limit' accepts any integer (default 10) but no min/max documented. 'start_year' and 'end_year' lack format/range guidance. LLM may pass invalid values (negative years, limit=999999).
No error recovery guidance. Tool catches exceptions and returns JSON error strings, but does not tell LLM what to do next (retry? ask user? fatal?). Violates pattern:recovery-guide.
| Scored | Grade | Overall | Spec posture | Rubric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-23 | D | 52 | 2026-07-28+ | v2 |
No idempotency or rate-limit documentation. Tool makes concurrent HTTP requests (semaphore=5) and fetches full abstracts per record. No guidance on retry safety, rate limits, or timeout behavior. Agents may retry aggressively.