Azure AI Travel Agents Question

[gracew99]

Hi, I noticed that in the example repository, the implementation first makes a GET /tools request to set up the MCP clients. Then it passes those tools to a POST /chat request which then sets up those MCP clients again. Isn't it redundant to do this twice? Can't you just skip directly to the POST /chat request that sets up the MCP clients?

[leestott]

Hi @gracew99 I presume you mean this sample https://github.com/azure-samples/azureai-travel-agent-python

GET /tools is for tool discovery/UI: list available MCP tools, validate connectivity, and surface schemas for debugging or UX.
POST /chat is the authoritative runtime: the server must attach MCP tools again to ensure correct config, auth, approvals, and freshness.

The duplication is intentional, not a bug, clients aren’t trusted as the source of truth.

You can skip GET /tools if you’re building a pure API with no UI/inspection needs; just use POST /chat.

Best practice
Keep GET /tools lightweight/read-only (cached discovery), keep POST /chat self‑contained for execution.