Tool Invocation
A single call by an agent to a declared tool, with structured arguments and a structured result.
Why it matters
The invocation is the atomic unit of an agent's action, and therefore the atomic unit of its audit trail. If invocations are not individually recorded with their arguments, no decision can be reconstructed afterward.
What it is not
These are routinely confused with Tool Invocation. The distinctions are not pedantic — each one has consequences for how a system is governed.
Invocation is calling a tool that returns. Delegation hands responsibility for an outcome to another agent that may act independently and at length.
Relationships
Typed edges into the rest of the ontology. These are what make the canon traversable rather than merely readable.
| Verb | Target | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
produces | Audit Trail | The subject emits the object as an output. |
dependsOn | MCP | The subject cannot function correctly without the object. |
Record
| Canonical identifier | QIS-TERM-00007 |
| Status | Canonical industry term |
| Adoption | Widely used |
| Domain · Layer | Capability · Intelligence |
| Origin | Model Context Protocol and every major agent framework. |
| Semantic aliases | None recorded. |
| First published | 2026-08-02 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-08-02 · 180-day cycle |
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