Tech_Interview_Prep

LLM Agents & Tool Use

Letting an LLM decide which actions to take — calling tools, APIs, or other models — rather than just generating text.

Q1.What does "tool calling" (function calling) allow an LLM to do?

Q2.In the ReAct pattern, what do the "Reason" and "Act" steps refer to?

Q3.Who actually executes a tool call requested by an LLM?

Q4.What is typically included in a tool's definition given to an LLM?

Q5.Why might an agent loop include a maximum step limit?

Q6.What is a common risk when an agent's tool includes untrusted external content (e.g. a webpage) in its output?

Q7.What is "planning" in the context of LLM agents?

Q8.Why are agentic systems generally more expensive and slower than single-turn LLM calls?

Q9.What is a common technique for giving an agent "memory" beyond a single context window?

Q10.What does "human-in-the-loop" mean for an agent system?

Q11.What distinguishes a "chatbot" from an "agent" in this context?

Q12.What is a typical structured format for tool call outputs from modern LLM APIs?

Q13.Why should tool outputs be validated before being fed back to the model?

Q14.What is a common failure mode of multi-step agent loops?

Q15.What is meant by "orchestration" in multi-agent systems?

Q16.Why might an agent system use a "router" step before invoking a specific agent or tool?

Q17.What is a key difference between giving an LLM a single powerful tool versus many narrow tools?

Q18.What does "self-correction" or "reflection" refer to in agent design?

Q19.Why is timeout/retry handling important when an agent calls external tools/APIs?

Q20.What is a common way to evaluate whether an agent successfully completed a task?

Q21.What risk does giving an agent a tool with write/destructive access (e.g. delete a file, send an email) introduce?

Q22.What is the purpose of few-shot examples of tool use in an agent's system prompt?

Q23.In an agent loop, what typically happens immediately after a tool call is executed?

Q24.Why might an agent system impose a strict allowlist of permitted tools/actions rather than giving the model unrestricted capability?

Q25.What's a key difference between a single-agent system with tools and a multi-agent system?