Getting the Parameters Right: A Difficulty-Graded Benchmark and Probe-Guided Training for LLM Tool Calls

Abstract

Large language model agents derive much of their capability from tool use. Existing research on tool use has largely focused on selecting the right tool and orchestrating the order of calls. However, correctly filling the parameters of a tool call is equally critical for successful execution and has received far less attention. In domains such as cloud networking, even frontier models correctly complete fewer than half of tool calls. Inspired by recent analyses showing that LLM hidden states encode rich information about model predictions, we discover that while the model generates a parameter value, its hidden state contains a strong correctness signal: a simple linear probe can accurately predict whether the value will be correct. Based on this observation, we propose a unified probe-guided framework with two complementary approaches: probe-filtered bootstrapped training (PBT), which uses the probe to filter reliable self-generated calls for fine-tuning, and probe-guided reranking (PGR), which uses the probe to select better candidates during inference. To support systematic evaluation, we release ParamBench, a benchmark built from real cloud-network APIs that categorizes every instance into five difficulty levels according to parameter nesting depth, cross-parameter dependencies, and the reasoning required to derive values from earlier calls. Extensive experiments across 5 open models on ParamBench and 6 external benchmarks demonstrate that our method substantially improves parameter generation, raising the average exact match from 19.7% to 59.6%.

15 pages, 8 figures