Anthropic is deliberately shrinking Claude Code's toolset — every tool must be distinguishable from every other one

Simon Willison·medium signal

Their stated design rule is cardinality and distinctness: 'every tool we add has a distinct function from every other tool, so that Claude can very easily distinguish when to call each,' and they are actively 'trying to trend towards fewer tools' in favor of more general capabilities. The counterexample is instructive — the file edit tool exists mainly because a dedicated tool gives them a UI surface for approval prompts and deterministic knowledge of when Claude changed something. The builder takeaway: add a tool when it buys you a distinct decision boundary or a UI/permission surface, not when it merely wraps a capability the agent already has.