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#artificial intelligence Preprint Open access

From Relevance to Validity: Zero-Shot Tool Selection via Functional and Contextual Validation

Xiaoxuan Dong Jin Zhang Zichen Yuan Yue Zhou Zihao Rao Dexu Yu Tingyong WU Wenhao Deng Junchen Fu Pengwei Sun Yang Ran Bo Lan Yongxin Ni Youhua Li
Oct 2026
Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Large language model (LLM) agents increasingly face tasks from unseen domains and execution contexts, making zero-shot tool selection essential for identifying tools that can satisfy task requirements. Existing dominant methods mainly rely on relevance ranking, but semantic matching alone cannot ensure that a tool is functionally compatible or remains applicable in a new context. We preliminarily identify a \emph{transfer-validity gap}, where semantically relevant tools may still fail to satisfy functional or contextual requirements after transfer. To address this gap, we propose \methodname{}, a progressive validation framework that complements semantic relevance with endpoint-grounded functional compatibility and task-conditioned contextual evidence. Across cross-domain and cross-dataset transfer, \methodname{} consistently improves capability ranking, with larger gains under functional or contextual ambiguity. Ablation results further confirm the complementary contributions of functional and contextual validation.

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