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docs: Add a comprehensive example for handling function tool errors. #1354

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34 changes: 34 additions & 0 deletions docs/tools.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -320,3 +320,37 @@ When you create a function tool via `@function_tool`, you can pass a `failure_er
- If you explicitly pass `None`, then any tool call errors will be re-raised for you to handle. This could be a `ModelBehaviorError` if the model produced invalid JSON, or a `UserError` if your code crashed, etc.

If you are manually creating a `FunctionTool` object, then you must handle errors inside the `on_invoke_tool` function.

## Example: Custom Error Handling in Function Tools

```python
import asyncio
from agents import Agent, Runner, function_tool, FunctionTool, Model

def my_custom_error_function(error, *args) -> str:
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I don't think this method signature is correct.

"""A custom function to provide a user-friendly error message."""
print(f"A tool call failed with the following error: {error}")
return "An internal server error occurred. Please try again later."

@function_tool(failure_error_function=my_custom_error_function)
def risky_operation(data) -> str:
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I feel "risky" is not the case here. It should be more of something that can fail. How about using an example to perform a backend API call (no need to use real backend; just pseudo code)?

"""Performs a risky operation that might fail."""
if not data:
raise ValueError("Data list cannot be empty.")
return "Operation successful."

async def main():
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To keep the document page as simple as possible, let's have only the tool and its error function in this code snippet.

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please delete this main function part

agent_with_error_tools = Agent(
name="Assistant",
instructions="Use the provided tools to answer.",
model=model,
tools=[risky_operation]
)
try:
result = await Runner.run(agent_with_error_tools, "Run the risky operation with an empty list.")
print("Final Output:", result.final_output)
except Exception as e:
print(f"An unexpected exception occurred: {e}")

if _name_ == "_main_":
asyncio.run(main())