DeepSeek-V3 Model Does Not Utilize Built-in Tools Effectively #6985

luxixing · 2025-03-25T07:03:38Z

luxixing
Mar 25, 2025

Before submitting your bug report

I believe this is a bug. I'll try to join the Continue Discord for questions
I'm not able to find an open issue that reports the same bug
I've seen the troubleshooting guide on the Continue Docs

Relevant environment info

- OS: MacOS
- Continue version: 1.1.14
- IDE version: vscode 1.98
- Model: deepseek v3
- config:
  

  
  OR link to assistant in Continue hub:

Description

I am using Continue (VSCode extension) v1.1.14 and have configured the DeepSeek-V3 model with the following capabilities:

capabilities:
  - tool_use

However, despite enabling tool_use, the model does not seem to leverage the built-in tools to fulfill my requests.

Additionally, I have tested Claude-3.5 in agent mode, but its performance in handling tool usage was also suboptimal.

In comparison, Cline performs significantly better in this aspect. I am unsure whether this is due to a misconfiguration on my end or if the agent mode in Continue is not fully utilizing the available tools as proactively as Cline does.

Questions

Is there a specific configuration required to ensure that DeepSeek-V3 (or other models) actively use tools when tool_use is enabled?

If agent mode is activated, does it fully leverage the tools as autonomously as Cline does?

Are there any best practices or additional parameters I should adjust to improve tool usage?

I appreciate any guidance on this matter. Thanks for your support!

To reproduce

No response

Log output

Answered by bdougie

Aug 6, 2025

Happy to share this was merged recently and now in release.

#6723

Documentation went live today.

https://docs.continue.dev/customize/deep-dives/model-capabilities

View full answer

commandblock2 · 2025-03-25T08:50:19Z

commandblock2
Mar 25, 2025

Hi, do you find that the model does not call tools at all or just is rarely doing so? Or can it sometimes call tools? I have tested with QwQ and claude, but in the OUTPUT - Continue - LLM prompt/Completion I do not see any requests with parameters of tools, which can be reproduced on 2 different Linux machines. This only happened after I updated continue to 1.1.14 pre-release with the new ui, it didn't have this problem back in 1.1.13. But I also noticed that the toolcall parameter has disappeared.

Edit: I was using config.json and had put

capabilities: {
    "tools": true
}

in every LLM block in my config file

0 replies

luxixing · 2025-03-25T09:41:04Z

luxixing
Mar 25, 2025
Author

Hi, do you find that the model does not call tools at all or just is rarely doing so? Or can it sometimes call tools? I have tested with QwQ and claude, but in the OUTPUT - Continue - LLM prompt/Completion I do not see any requests with parameters of tools, which can be reproduced on 2 different Linux machines. This only happened after I updated continue to 1.1.14 pre-release with the new ui, it didn't have this problem back in 1.1.13. But I also noticed that the toolcall parameter has disappeared.

Edit: I was using config.json and had put

capabilities: {
"tools": true
}
in every LLM block in my config file

as same with you.

0 replies

luxixing · 2025-03-25T09:42:25Z

luxixing
Mar 25, 2025
Author

I have used Cline, and I must say it works really well. I believe this is something worth considering for Continue—learning from Cline’s approach and potentially incorporating similar enhancements. Since Cline is also open-source, it could serve as a valuable reference.

0 replies

commandblock2 · 2025-03-25T14:39:10Z

commandblock2
Mar 25, 2025

Hi @luxixing, I have figured out how to call tools before I was just about to blame the devs for not testing this before releasing it🤣. If you are also experiencing that models telling you that they do not have the capability of calling tools or something. I am not exactly sure if this problem has anything to do with the version of continue, I am using 1.1.15 now, in this version I can switch to agent on the model and let it do tool calls, their docs probably needs to be updated though. Maybe the devs these days are working on something else and is too busy to respond. But it is really frustrating to have problems like this.

0 replies

luxixing · 2025-03-26T01:42:55Z

luxixing
Mar 26, 2025
Author

Following the upgrade to version 1.1.16, I conducted tests using both DeepSeek v3 and Gemini 2.5 Pro in agent mode. My findings are as follows:

DeepSeek v3 Failure in Agent Mode:

Observed Behavior:
DeepSeek v3 failed to produce any meaningful output in agent mode.
The request and response logs indicate an empty completion response.
Detailed Request/Response Log:

=========================================================================

==========================================================================

##### Completion options #####

{

  "contextLength": 8096,

  "maxTokens": 4096,

  "temperature": 0.5,

  "model": "deepseek-chat",

  "tools": [

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Create New File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "create a new file",

      "group": "Built-In",

      "readonly": false,

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_create_new_file",

        "description": "Create a new file. Only use this when a file doesn't exist and should be created",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "filepath",

            "contents"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "filepath": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path where the new file should be created, relative to the root of the workspace"

            },

            "contents": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The contents to write to the new file"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Run Terminal Command",

      "wouldLikeTo": "run a terminal command",

      "readonly": false,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_run_terminal_command",

        "description": "Run a terminal command in the current directory. The shell is not stateful and will not remember any previous commands. Do NOT perform actions requiring special/admin priveleges.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "command"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "command": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The command to run. This will be passed directly into the IDE shell."

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Subdirectory",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the contents of \"{{{ directory_path }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_subdirectory",

        "description": "View the contents of a subdirectory",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "directory_path"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "directory_path": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path of the subdirectory to view, relative to the root of the workspace"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Repo Map",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the repository map",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_repo_map",

        "description": "View the repository map",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Exact Search",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search for \"{{{ query }}}\" in the repository",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_exact_search",

        "description": "Perform an exact search over the repository using ripgrep.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The search query to use. Must be a valid ripgrep regex expression, escaped where needed"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Search Web",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search the web for \"{{{ query }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_search_web",

        "description": "Performs a web search, returning top results. Use this tool sparingly - only for questions that require specialized, external, and/or up-to-date knowledege. Common programming questions do not require web search.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The natural language search query"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Diff",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view a diff",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_diff",

        "description": "View the current diff of working changes",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Read Currently Open File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "read the current file",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_read_currently_open_file",

        "description": "Read the currently open file in the IDE. If the user seems to be referring to a file that you can't see, try using this",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    }

  ]

}



##### Prompt #####

You are an AI programming assistant, utilizing the DeepSeek Coder model, developed by DeepSeek Company, and your  role is to assist with questions related to computer science. For politically sensitive questions, security and privacy issues, and other non-computer science questions, you will not answer.

### Instruction:

<important_rules>

  Always include the language and file name in the info string when you write code blocks. If you are editing "src/main.py" for example, your code block should start with '```python src/main.py'.

</important_rules>

can you get my kernel version

### Response:

==========================================================================

==========================================================================

Completion:

Gemini

==========================================================================

==========================================================================

##### Completion options #####

{

  "contextLength": 8096,

  "maxTokens": 4096,

  "temperature": 0.5,

  "model": "gemini-2.5-pro-exp-03-25",

  "tools": [

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Create New File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "create a new file",

      "group": "Built-In",

      "readonly": false,

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_create_new_file",

        "description": "Create a new file. Only use this when a file doesn't exist and should be created",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "filepath",

            "contents"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "filepath": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path where the new file should be created, relative to the root of the workspace"

            },

            "contents": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The contents to write to the new file"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Run Terminal Command",

      "wouldLikeTo": "run a terminal command",

      "readonly": false,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_run_terminal_command",

        "description": "Run a terminal command in the current directory. The shell is not stateful and will not remember any previous commands. Do NOT perform actions requiring special/admin priveleges.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "command"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "command": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The command to run. This will be passed directly into the IDE shell."

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Subdirectory",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the contents of \"{{{ directory_path }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_subdirectory",

        "description": "View the contents of a subdirectory",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "directory_path"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "directory_path": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path of the subdirectory to view, relative to the root of the workspace"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Repo Map",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the repository map",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_repo_map",

        "description": "View the repository map",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Exact Search",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search for \"{{{ query }}}\" in the repository",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_exact_search",

        "description": "Perform an exact search over the repository using ripgrep.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The search query to use. Must be a valid ripgrep regex expression, escaped where needed"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Search Web",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search the web for \"{{{ query }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_search_web",

        "description": "Performs a web search, returning top results. Use this tool sparingly - only for questions that require specialized, external, and/or up-to-date knowledege. Common programming questions do not require web search.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The natural language search query"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Diff",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view a diff",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_diff",

        "description": "View the current diff of working changes",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Read Currently Open File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "read the current file",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_read_currently_open_file",

        "description": "Read the currently open file in the IDE. If the user seems to be referring to a file that you can't see, try using this",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    }

  ]

}



##### Prompt #####

<system>

<important_rules>

  Always include the language and file name in the info string when you write code blocks. If you are editing "src/main.py" for example, your code block should start with '```python src/main.py'.

</important_rules>



<user>

can you get my kernel version



==========================================================================

==========================================================================

Completion:

[object Object]



==========================================================================

==========================================================================

##### Completion options #####

{

  "contextLength": 8096,

  "maxTokens": 4096,

  "temperature": 0.5,

  "model": "gemini-2.5-pro-exp-03-25",

  "tools": [

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Create New File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "create a new file",

      "group": "Built-In",

      "readonly": false,

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_create_new_file",

        "description": "Create a new file. Only use this when a file doesn't exist and should be created",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "filepath",

            "contents"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "filepath": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path where the new file should be created, relative to the root of the workspace"

            },

            "contents": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The contents to write to the new file"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Run Terminal Command",

      "wouldLikeTo": "run a terminal command",

      "readonly": false,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_run_terminal_command",

        "description": "Run a terminal command in the current directory. The shell is not stateful and will not remember any previous commands. Do NOT perform actions requiring special/admin priveleges.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "command"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "command": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The command to run. This will be passed directly into the IDE shell."

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Subdirectory",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the contents of \"{{{ directory_path }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_subdirectory",

        "description": "View the contents of a subdirectory",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "directory_path"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "directory_path": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The path of the subdirectory to view, relative to the root of the workspace"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Repo Map",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view the repository map",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_repo_map",

        "description": "View the repository map",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Exact Search",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search for \"{{{ query }}}\" in the repository",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_exact_search",

        "description": "Perform an exact search over the repository using ripgrep.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The search query to use. Must be a valid ripgrep regex expression, escaped where needed"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Search Web",

      "wouldLikeTo": "search the web for \"{{{ query }}}\"",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_search_web",

        "description": "Performs a web search, returning top results. Use this tool sparingly - only for questions that require specialized, external, and/or up-to-date knowledege. Common programming questions do not require web search.",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "required": [

            "query"

          ],

          "properties": {

            "query": {

              "type": "string",

              "description": "The natural language search query"

            }

          }

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "View Diff",

      "wouldLikeTo": "view a diff",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_view_diff",

        "description": "View the current diff of working changes",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    },

    {

      "type": "function",

      "displayTitle": "Read Currently Open File",

      "wouldLikeTo": "read the current file",

      "readonly": true,

      "group": "Built-In",

      "function": {

        "name": "builtin_read_currently_open_file",

        "description": "Read the currently open file in the IDE. If the user seems to be referring to a file that you can't see, try using this",

        "parameters": {

          "type": "object",

          "properties": {}

        }

      }

    }

  ]

}



##### Prompt #####

<system>

<important_rules>

  Always include the language and file name in the info string when you write code blocks. If you are editing "src/main.py" for example, your code block should start with '```python src/main.py'.

</important_rules>



<user>

can you get my kernel version



<assistant>

OK. I can run a command to find that out.



<assistant>

builtin_run_terminal_command({"command":"uname -r"})



<tool>

24.3.0





==========================================================================

==========================================================================

Completion:

[object Object]

Observed Behavior:
While Gemini 2.5 Pro can invoke tools, its overall agent capabilities are significantly inferior to Cline.
The current agent mode implementation feels more like a basic tool invocation system rather than a sophisticated agent.
The model returns [object Object] instead of a string, which indicates a problem with the return value.
The agent lacks the ability to proactively understand the project, gather contextual information, and independently write code based on user needs.

Strong Recommendation:

I strongly urge the Continue development team to thoroughly study and implement Cline's agent capabilities.
The current agent mode in Continue is more of a toy, and does not provide the robust agent like experience, that Cline provides.
Continue needs to have the agent be able to understand the project structure, and the code inside of the project, to be able to effectively complete tasks.
The goal is to have the agent be able to understand the users requests, and then to autonomously analyze the project, and then complete the users request.
Implementing a more advanced agent architecture, similar to Cline, will greatly enhance Continue's functionality and user experience.

0 replies

Patrick-Erichsen · 2025-04-01T04:37:34Z

Patrick-Erichsen
Apr 1, 2025
Collaborator

cc @RomneyDa here

0 replies

commandblock2 · 2025-04-23T08:04:22Z

commandblock2
Apr 23, 2025

Cline does not do the tool calling in the openai compatible api way. It provides the tools directly in chat and does the parsing it self, which surprisingly, works more reliably. Maybe the problems are with the model providers.

0 replies

BradKML · 2025-05-27T02:25:54Z

BradKML
May 27, 2025

Even in Cursor and RooCode, it is known that DeepSeek is just not great with tool use, so I have a few questions:

Are Qwen3 good for tool calling and planning, as a replacement for other LLMs?
How is DeepSeek v3.1 for tool calling? And will people test DeepSeek R2 for tool calling as well?

0 replies

JunYang-tes · 2025-06-30T09:17:36Z

JunYang-tes
Jun 30, 2025

It might be the reason for the lost tool call state here:

continue/core/llm/index.ts

Lines 908 to 920 in 38342fa

    
           if (this.templateMessages) { 
        
             for await (const chunk of this._streamComplete( 
        
               prompt, 
        
               signal, 
        
               completionOptions, 
        
             )) { 
        
               completion += chunk; 
        
               interaction?.logItem({ 
        
                 kind: "chunk", 
        
                 chunk: chunk, 
        
               }); 
        
               yield { role: "assistant", content: chunk }; 
        
             }

Also see:
#6236 (review)

0 replies

Patrick-Erichsen · 2025-06-30T21:33:33Z

Patrick-Erichsen
Jun 30, 2025
Collaborator

Cline does not do the tool calling in the openai compatible api way. It provides the tools directly in chat and does the parsing it self, which surprisingly, works more reliably. Maybe the problems are with the model providers.

This is correct, @RomneyDa is working on a PR that will enable "virtual" tool calling, eg defining the tools directly in the system message, that will hopefully perform better with current DeepSeek models.

0 replies

bdougie · 2025-08-06T01:07:45Z

bdougie
Aug 6, 2025
Collaborator

Happy to share this was merged recently and now in release.

#6723

Documentation went live today.

https://docs.continue.dev/customize/deep-dives/model-capabilities

0 replies

DeepSeek-V3 Model Does Not Utilize Built-in Tools Effectively #6985

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luxixing Mar 25, 2025

Before submitting your bug report

Relevant environment info

Description

Description

Questions

To reproduce

Log output

Replies: 11 comments

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commandblock2 Mar 25, 2025

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luxixing Mar 25, 2025 Author

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luxixing Mar 25, 2025 Author

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commandblock2 Mar 25, 2025

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luxixing Mar 26, 2025 Author

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Patrick-Erichsen Apr 1, 2025 Collaborator

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commandblock2 Apr 23, 2025

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BradKML May 27, 2025

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JunYang-tes Jun 30, 2025

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Patrick-Erichsen Jun 30, 2025 Collaborator

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bdougie Aug 6, 2025 Collaborator

luxixing
Mar 25, 2025

commandblock2
Mar 25, 2025

luxixing
Mar 25, 2025
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luxixing
Mar 25, 2025
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commandblock2
Mar 25, 2025

luxixing
Mar 26, 2025
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Patrick-Erichsen
Apr 1, 2025
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commandblock2
Apr 23, 2025

BradKML
May 27, 2025

JunYang-tes
Jun 30, 2025

Patrick-Erichsen
Jun 30, 2025
Collaborator

bdougie
Aug 6, 2025
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