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fix: serialize tool errors as strings in FunctionResponse

Open Omzee15 opened this issue 2 weeks ago • 2 comments

Tool errors were previously serialized as error interfaces which marshal to empty JSON objects ({}), making it impossible for LLMs to understand what went wrong. This fix converts errors to strings using err.Error() before including them in the FunctionResponse.

Changes:

  • Modified callTool() in base_flow.go to call .Error() on error objects
  • Added comprehensive tests for error serialization scenarios
  • Covers tool execution errors, before/after callback errors

Fixes issue where LLMs received error: {} instead of meaningful error messages.

Omzee15 avatar Nov 16 '25 07:11 Omzee15

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google-cla[bot] avatar Nov 16 '25 07:11 google-cla[bot]

Summary of Changes

Hello @Omzee15, I'm Gemini Code Assist[^1]! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!

This pull request resolves an issue where Large Language Models (LLMs) received uninformative empty JSON objects when tool calls resulted in errors. By explicitly converting error interfaces to their string representations, the change ensures that LLMs receive meaningful and actionable error messages, significantly improving their ability to understand and respond to tool failures.

Highlights

  • Error Serialization: Tool errors are now explicitly serialized as strings using the .Error() method before being included in the FunctionResponse. This prevents errors from being marshaled into empty JSON objects, which were previously uninterpretable by LLMs.
  • Affected Error Scenarios: The fix applies to errors originating from BeforeToolCallback failures, actual tool execution failures, and AfterToolCallback failures, ensuring consistent error reporting across all tool-related operations.
  • Comprehensive Testing: New tests have been added to validate the correct serialization of various error types (e.g., fmt.Errorf, errors.New, wrapped errors) and to confirm that errors remain properly formatted after JSON marshaling and unmarshaling.
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gemini-code-assist[bot] avatar Nov 16 '25 07:11 gemini-code-assist[bot]