googleapis/mcp-toolbox · error

description is required for tool %q

Error message

description is required for tool %q

What it means

Initialize rejects a tool configuration whose 'description' field is empty. Description is mandatory for this tool type (it feeds the LLM tool manifest), so the error fires during startup when the tools.yaml entry omits or leaves blank the 'description' key.

Source

Thrown at internal/tools/mindsdb/mindsdbsql/mindsdbsql.go:69

type Config struct {
	tools.ConfigBase   `yaml:",inline"`
	Type               string                 `yaml:"type" validate:"required"`
	Source             string                 `yaml:"source" validate:"required"`
	Statement          string                 `yaml:"statement" validate:"required"`
	Parameters         parameters.Parameters  `yaml:"parameters"`
	TemplateParameters parameters.Parameters  `yaml:"templateParameters"`
	Annotations        *tools.ToolAnnotations `yaml:"annotations,omitempty"`
}

var _ tools.ToolConfig = Config{}

func (cfg Config) ToolConfigType() string {
	return resourceType
}

func (cfg Config) Initialize(context.Context) (tools.Tool, error) {
	if cfg.Description == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("description is required for tool %q", cfg.Name)
	}

	allParameters, paramManifest, err := parameters.ProcessParameters(cfg.TemplateParameters, cfg.Parameters)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	return Tool{
		BaseTool: tools.NewBaseTool(
			cfg,
			tools.GetAnnotationsOrDefault(cfg.Annotations, tools.NewDestructiveAnnotations),
			tools.Manifest{Description: cfg.Description, Parameters: paramManifest, AuthRequired: cfg.AuthRequired},
			allParameters,
		),
	}, nil
}

var _ tools.Tool = Tool{}

View on GitHub (pinned to 8cc6e09de2)

Solutions

1. Add a meaningful non-empty `description` to the mindsdb-sql tool config
2. If tools are generated from templates, assert description is set before writing the YAML
3. Validate the config locally before deploying

Example fix

// before
query:
  kind: mindsdb-sql
  source: my-mindsdb
  statement: SELECT * FROM tbl
// after
query:
  kind: mindsdb-sql
  source: my-mindsdb
  description: Run a parameterized SQL query on MindsDB.
  statement: SELECT * FROM tbl

if cfg.Description == "" {
    return errors.New("mindsdb-sql: description is required")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Defining a tool with kind `mindsdb-sql` without a `description` (or with an empty string) in tools.yaml; Initialize runs during config parsing.

Common situations: Omitting description while hand-editing YAML; a template/generator that leaves description blank; removing a description during refactoring.

Related errors

• description is required for tool %q
• description is required for tool %q
• description is required for tool %q
• description is required for tool %q
• description is required for tool %q

AI-assisted analysis of googleapis/mcp-toolbox@8cc6e09de2 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7a46652ceb8eb9af. Report an issue: GitHub.