An agent picks tools by matching your question to what each tool covers. A question about one name and a question about the market match different tools. If your wording is loose, the agent may answer the one you did not ask.
The market question
A market question is about the backdrop. On NoVo’s server several free tools answer it. get_market_pulse returns a composite fear and greed score with the factors behind it. get_volatility_record ranks the VIX family against its own history. get_sector_heatmap shows the day’s move by sector, and get_movers lists the largest moves. get_dealer_levels gives the index positioning on SPY, QQQ and IWM.
A good market answer draws on two or three of these and says which. It describes conditions. It does not have a view on any single stock.
The single-name question
A question about one ticker goes to get_ticker_brief. In one call it returns what the free surface carries for that name: short volume if the name is covered, the next earnings date, House disclosures and retail chatter. Each section has its own time stamp. A section that cannot answer says so, with a reason.
What a single name does not have
This is the part an agent gets wrong most often. NoVo maps dealer positioning on SPY, QQQ and IWM. It does not map it on individual stocks. The brief says this directly: its dealer section is marked as not covered for any other name. An agent asked for the NVDA gamma flip should say there is none on this server. It should not hand you the QQQ flip with NVDA’s name on it.
The same care applies to perps. With a paid key, get_stocks_onchain takes an optional symbol and returns that name’s perp and stock token. Those carry funding, open interest and premium. They carry no dealer gamma, no flip and no walls. The readings are explained in stock perps, explained.
Saying which you mean
Put the scope in the question. For the market, say the market, or name the index. For a stock, give the ticker and say just this name. If you want both, ask twice. A message that asks how NVDA looks given the market tends to produce a blend where you cannot tell which sentence came from which tool.
Checking the answer
Ask which tools were called. A single-name answer built only from index tools is a market answer with a ticker pasted on. A market answer built from one stock’s brief is the reverse. Either way the tool list shows it at once, which is the habit described in an answer you cannot check is an opinion.
Where each lives
Both kinds of tool are on the MCP & API. The index map with its flip and walls is drawn live on Trader. If you hold the name already, what to ask about a position you hold covers the questions worth putting to the agent.