A customs-compliance agent needs to validate a declaration by (1) looking up the correct HS code for the goods description and (2) checking that code against the destination country's current tariff rules. In what order should these two tools be defined and called for reliable multi-stage reasoning?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
You can't check a rule against a code you don't have yet - lookup the code first, then hand that code to the rule checker, the same order a customs officer would actually work the file in.
Full Explanation
The correct order is HS-code lookup first, then tariff-rule checking, because the second tool has a hard data dependency on the first tool's output - it cannot evaluate tariff rules for a code it has not yet received. Calling the tariff checker first is backwards and would require guessing or leaving the code parameter empty, producing an unreliable or failed call. Calling both tools simultaneously seems efficient but breaks the dependency: the tariff tool needs a concrete code as an argument, and 'reconciling disagreement afterward' is not a substitute for supplying the right input in the first place, it just adds a repair step for a failure that sequencing would have prevented. Skipping the lookup and letting the model guess the code from parametric knowledge reintroduces hallucination risk into a compliance-critical field, exactly what tool use is meant to eliminate by grounding facts in an authoritative source. Defining and ordering tools for multi-stage reasoning means tracing which tool's output is another tool's required input, and sequencing calls to satisfy that dependency chain.