A team exposes an internal ticketing system to Claude through an MCP server. The tool search_tickets accepts…

Question

A team exposes an internal ticketing system to Claude through an MCP server. The tool search_tickets accepts a single free-text parameter called q and its description reads "Search tickets." Claude often passes vague queries and then re-calls the tool several times with slight variations. What is the best remediation?

Accepted Answer

A. Rewrite the tool with a rich description that states when to use it, and replace the free-text parameter with an explicit typed schema (status, assignee, date range, keywords) including descriptions and enums

Answer

B. Add a system prompt instruction telling Claude to call search_tickets at most once per conversation

Answer

C. Wrap the MCP server behind a proxy that silently rewrites Claude's queries before they reach the API

Answer

D. Split search_tickets into twenty narrowly scoped tools, one per ticket status value

Question 291