Agent-Computer Interface

Problem

Human-facing tools are wrong-shaped for the agent: a normal text editor returns a whole 4000-line buffer when the agent only needs ten lines, a generic shell prints unbounded stdout that overflows context, and a web page returns minified JavaScript instead of structured state. The agent burns turns scrolling, paginating, and re-reading content it cannot fit, and signal-poor outputs (no exit codes, no linter feedback) hide the information the model actually needs to decide its next step.

Solution

Design tools specifically for agents: file viewer that shows a windowed slice with line numbers, edit tool that re-runs linter and shows results, shell that returns structured stdout/stderr/exit-code, search tool that filters and ranks. Each tool's signature + return type optimised for the agent's context budget and reasoning shape.

When to use

• Off-the-shelf human tools (shells, editors, web pages) overwhelm the agent's context with noise.
• You can curate a small, agent-specific tool surface (windowed file viewer, structured shell, ranked search).
• You measure agent performance and want the tool layer to be a tunable variable.