How Can Input Reformulation Improve Tool Usage Accuracy in a Complex Dynamic Environment? A Study on τ-bench

Recent advances in reasoning and planning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) have enabled their potential as autonomous agents capable of tool use in dynamic environments. However, in multi-turn conversational environments like τ-bench, these agents often struggle with consistent reasoning, adherence to domain-specific policies, and extracting correct information over a long horizon of tool calls and conversation. To capture and mitigate these failures, we conduct a comprehensive manual analysis of the common errors occurring in the conversation trajectories. We then experiment with reformulations of inputs to the tool-calling agent for improvement in agent decision-making. Finally, we propose the Input-Reformulation Multi-Agent (IRMA) framework, which automatically reformulates user queries augmented with relevant domain rules and tool suggestions for the tool-calling agent to focus on. The results show that IRMA significantly outperforms ReAct, Function Calling, and Self-Reflection by 16.1%, 12.7%, and 19.1%, respectively, in overall pass^5 scores. These findings highlight the superior reliability and consistency of IRMA compared to other methods in dynamic environments.