sidebar_label	Tools
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Tools

AlphaApollo includes an extensible tool system that allows models to execute actions in the real world — running code and retrieving knowledge. The tool framework is built around a descriptor-based registration pattern, and ships with three built-in tools: Python Code and Local RAG.

Tool Framework

The framework is defined in alphaapollo/core/tools/core.py and provides two core abstractions:

`tool` Descriptor

The tool class is a Python descriptor that marks a method as a callable tool. When applied via the @tool decorator syntax, it stores the method’s __name__ as the tool name and supports automatic discovery by ToolGroup:

from alphaapollo.core.tools.core import tool

class MyToolGroup(ToolGroup):
    @tool
    def my_tool(self, input_text: str) -> dict:
        return {"text_result": "...", "score": 0}

:::info Implementation note Unlike a simple function decorator, tool implements __init__ and __get__ — making it a descriptor rather than a wrapper. ToolGroup._register_tools() identifies tool methods by checking isinstance(attr, tool) on the class, not the instance. :::

`ToolGroup` Base Class

A container for related tools:

Method	Description
`__init__(name)`	Stores the group name and calls `_register_tools()`
`_register_tools()`	Auto-discovers all `@tool`-decorated methods on the class
`get_name()`	Returns the group’s name
`get_tool(name)`	Returns the callable for a single tool, or `None` if not found
`get_tool_names()`	Returns a list of all registered tool names
`execute_tool(name, args, *kwargs)`	Dispatches a call to the named tool. If a single `dict` argument is passed, it is unpacked as `**kwargs`
`get_tool_to_group_mapping()`	Returns a `{tool_name: group_name}` mapping

InformalMathToolGroup

alphaapollo/core/tools/manager.py implements InformalMathToolGroup(ToolGroup), which registers the three built-in tools:

class InformalMathToolGroup(ToolGroup):
    def __init__(self, log_requests=True, vllm_cfg=None,
                 verifier_cfg=None, tool_config=None, rag_cfg=None): ...

    @tool
    def python_code(self, code: str) -> dict: ...

    @tool
    def local_rag(self, repo_name: str, query: str, top_k: int) -> dict: ...

Constructor parameters:

Parameter	Type	Description
`log_requests`	`bool`	Whether to log tool invocations (default: `True`)
`vllm_cfg`	`dict`	Deprecated — use `verifier_cfg` instead
`verifier_cfg`	`dict`	Configuration for the verifier agent (model name, base URL, etc.)
`tool_config`	`dict`	Controls tool behavior (see below)
`rag_cfg`	`dict`	RAG-specific configuration (overrides `tool_config["rag_cfg"]`)

tool_config keys:

Key	Type	Default	Description
`enable_python_code`	`bool`	`True`	Enable/disable Python code execution
`enable_local_rag`	`bool`	`True`	Enable/disable Local RAG retrieval
`python_code_timeout`	`int`	`30`	Timeout in seconds for code execution (at the ToolGroup level)
`rag_cfg`	`dict`	`{}`	RAG connection settings (see RAG Infrastructure)

Instance methods:

set_ground_truth(ground_truth: str) — the environment calls this on each reset() to inject the current problem’s answer.

Python Code Tool

File: alphaapollo/core/tools/python_code.py

The Python Code tool allows the model to write and execute Python code during reasoning, enabling numerical computation, symbolic manipulation, and verification.

How It Works

Security check — check_forbidden_imports() blocks dangerous modules:
- subprocess, multiprocessing, threading, socket, psutil, resource, ctypes
- Builtins: input()
Code wrapping — wrap_python_code() automatically adds print() around the last expression if it doesn't already produce output.
f-string fix — escapes literal newlines inside f-strings, which is a common issue in LLM-generated code.
Indentation fix — fix_indentation() corrects common indentation issues in LLM-generated code.
Execution — writes the code to a temporary file and runs it via subprocess.run() with configurable timeout.
Pre-imports — common libraries are pre-imported: string, re, datetime, collections, heapq, bisect, copy, math, random, statistics, itertools, functools, operator, io, sys, json, builtins, typing.

Return Value

The low-level execute_python_code() function returns:

{
    "stdout": "...",          # Standard output
    "stderr": "...",          # Standard error
    "returncode": 0,          # Exit code
    "run_status": "Finished"  # "Finished" | "Timeout" | "Error"
}

The @tool python_code() wrapper then re-packages this into the standard tool format:

{
    "text_result": "{\"result\": \"...\", \"status\": \"success\", ...}",  # JSON string
    "score": 1       # 1 if "Finished", 0 otherwise
}

:::note Two timeout defaults The raw execute_python_code() uses DEFAULT_TIMEOUT = 3 seconds (in python_code.py), but InformalMathToolGroup defaults to python_code_timeout = 30 seconds (in manager.py). The ToolGroup’s value takes precedence at runtime. :::

Tool Invocation Format

The model uses XML-style tags to invoke this tool:

<python_code>
import sympy
x = sympy.Symbol('x')
print(sympy.solve(x**2 - 4, x))
</python_code>

Local RAG Tool

File: alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/local_rag.py

The Local RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) tool allows the model to search documentation from mathematical and scientific Python libraries. For architecture and configuration context, see Agent System and Evolving Config.

Supported Repositories

Repository	Domain
`sympy`	Symbolic mathematics
`scipy`	Scientific computing
`numpy`	Numerical computing
`math`	Standard math library
`cmath`	Complex math
`fractions`	Rational arithmetic
`itertools`	Combinatorial iterators

Retrieval Flow

Query → Rewrite (generalize/simplify)
          ↓
     RAG Retrieve (embedding search)
          ↓
     Summarize (distill relevant info)
          ↓
     Return results

Query rewriting — rewrite_to_single_or_empty() generalizes the query for better retrieval. If the query is already simple, it returns empty (skip rewriting).
Retrieval — rag_retrieve() calls the RAG API endpoint (/rag/retrieve) with the rewritten query and returns top-k document chunks.
Summarization — summarize_or_empty() condenses retrieved documents into a focused answer. If documents are already clear, returns empty (skip summarization).

RAG Infrastructure

The RAG system consists of three services:

Service	Default Port	Purpose
vLLM Chat	10089	Query rewriting & summarization
vLLM Embed	10088	Embedding generation
RAG API	10086	Document retrieval

Configuration is managed in alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/rag_config.yaml. The InformalMathToolGroup.local_rag() method reads connection settings from rag_cfg as full URLs:

`rag_cfg` Key	Description	Example
`rag_base_url`	RAG retrieval API endpoint	`http://localhost:10086`
`chat_base_url`	vLLM chat API endpoint	`http://localhost:10089/v1`
`chat_model`	Model name for rewriting/summarization	`Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B`
`chat_timeout`	Timeout for chat requests	`60`

:::tip RAG file structure The alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/ directory contains:

local_rag.py — retrieval + rewriting + summarization pipeline
rag_utils.py — shared RAG utilities
rag_config.py / rag_config.yaml — default configuration
start_rag_server.sh / stop_rag_server.sh — server lifecycle scripts
deepwiki_server/ — RAG server implementation :::

See Evolving Config for setup-related configuration details.

RAG Service Setup

Use the following steps to set up Local RAG services.

1) Install dependencies

pip install -r alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/requirements.txt

2) Prepare DeepWiki cache

mkdir -p ~/.adalflow

If you have pre-existing cache data, extract it to ~/.adalflow.

DeepWiki cache archive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QnORK_1Qcjstm4_DnrbIUX_rPd-AiGEx/view?usp=sharing

Or download with gdown:

cd ~/.adalflow
# pip install gdown
gdown https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1QnORK_1Qcjstm4_DnrbIUX_rPd-AiGEx

unzip deepwiki_data.zip -d ~/.adalflow
# verify: should contain 'databases' and 'wikicache'
ls ~/.adalflow

3) Edit RAG config

Edit alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/rag_config.yaml:

ports:
  rag_api: 10086
  vllm_embed: 10088
  vllm_chat: 10089

models:
  chat:
    path: "/path/to/Qwen3-8B"
    max_model_len: 32768
    gpu_memory_utilization: 0.6
  embedding:
    path: "/path/to/Qwen3-Embedding-8B"

gpu:
  cuda_visible_devices: "5"

4) Start services

bash alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/start_rag_server.sh

This starts:

vLLM Chat (10089)
vLLM Embed (10088)
RAG API (10086)

5) Run a quick test

python -m alphaapollo.core.tools.rag.rag_test

6) Stop services

bash alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/stop_rag_server.sh

7) View logs

tail -f alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/logs/vllm_chat.log
tail -f alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/logs/vllm_embed.log
tail -f alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/logs/rag_api.log

Tool Invocation Format

<local_rag>
repo_name: sympy
query: How to solve a system of linear equations?
top_k: 5
</local_rag>

How Tools Are Called

The environment's action parsing and tool execution flow:

sequenceDiagram
    participant LLM as LLM Model
    participant Proj as Projection
    participant Env as Environment (step)
    participant TG as ToolGroup
    participant Tool as Tool Function

    LLM->>Proj: Raw text with <tool_name>...</tool_name>
    Proj->>Proj: Extract first valid tag, truncate after close tag
    Proj->>Env: Structured action + validity mask
    Env->>Env: _parse_action() → identify tool name & input
    Env->>TG: _execute_tool(group, name, input)
    TG->>Tool: Dispatch by name (unpack dict args)
    Tool-->>TG: {text_result, score}
    TG-->>Env: Tool result
    Env-->>LLM: <tool_response>text_result</tool_response>

Detailed steps:

The model generates text containing tool-call tags (e.g., <python_code>...</python_code>).
Projection (projection.py) extracts the first valid tool call and truncates after the closing tag.
The environment's step() method invokes _parse_action() to identify the tool name and input.
_execute_tool() dispatches the call to the appropriate ToolGroup method.
The tool result (text + score) is returned as part of the observation.

Tool call priority: <answer> (terminates) > tool tags. If both appear in the same action, the action is marked invalid.

Adding Custom Tools

For a complete step-by-step guide on adding custom tools — including implementation, registration, projection, prompt updates, configuration, and testing — see new-tool.md.

Agent Client

AlphaApollo includes two Agent classes that serve as OpenAI-compatible LLM clients:

Agent	Location	Use Case
`core/tools/agent.py`	Tool-level	Simple inference without retry/timeout; used for tool-based verification
`generation/evolving/utils/agent.py`	Evolution pipeline	Full-featured: `max_retries=5`, `timeout=300s`, handles `reasoning_content` from reasoning models

The evolution Agent formats reasoning models’ output as <think>...\n</think>\n{content}, while the tool-level Agent returns raw content only.

Configuration

Tools are enabled/disabled through the environment config in YAML files:

env:
  config:
    enable_python_code: true
    enable_local_rag: false
    python_code_timeout: 30
    rag_cfg:
      rag_base_url: "http://localhost:10086"
      chat_base_url: "http://localhost:10089/v1"
      chat_model: "Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B"
      chat_timeout: 60

The InformalMathToolGroup reads these flags at initialization and only registers enabled tools.

Security Model

The Python Code tool enforces a security sandbox via check_forbidden_imports():

Blocked Module	Reason
`subprocess`	Prevents arbitrary command execution
`multiprocessing`	Prevents process forking
`threading`	Prevents thread spawning
`socket`	Prevents network access
`psutil`	Prevents system introspection
`resource`	Prevents resource limit manipulation
`ctypes`	Prevents FFI / native code execution
`input()` builtin	Prevents stdin blocking

Code is executed in a temporary file via subprocess.run() with a configurable timeout, providing process-level isolation.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
`Tool 'X' not found in group 'Y'`	Tool method name doesn’t match the XML tag	Ensure `@tool` method name equals the tag name exactly
`Timeout` from `python_code`	Code runs longer than `python_code_timeout`	Increase timeout in YAML config or optimize the generated code
`Forbidden import detected`	Code uses a blocked module	Review generated code; this is expected security behavior
RAG returns empty results	RAG services not running	Start services with `bash alphaapollo/core/tools/rag/start_rag_server.sh`
`Connection refused` on RAG	Wrong `rag_base_url` or `chat_base_url`	Verify URLs and ports in `rag_cfg` match the running services

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Tools

Tool Framework

`tool` Descriptor

`ToolGroup` Base Class

InformalMathToolGroup

Python Code Tool

How It Works

Return Value

Tool Invocation Format

Local RAG Tool

Supported Repositories

Retrieval Flow

RAG Infrastructure

RAG Service Setup

1) Install dependencies

2) Prepare DeepWiki cache

3) Edit RAG config

4) Start services

5) Run a quick test

6) Stop services

7) View logs

Tool Invocation Format

How Tools Are Called

Adding Custom Tools

Agent Client

Configuration

Security Model

Troubleshooting

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tools.md

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Tools

Tool Framework

tool Descriptor

ToolGroup Base Class

InformalMathToolGroup

Python Code Tool

How It Works

Return Value

Tool Invocation Format

Local RAG Tool

Supported Repositories

Retrieval Flow

RAG Infrastructure

RAG Service Setup

1) Install dependencies

2) Prepare DeepWiki cache

3) Edit RAG config

4) Start services

5) Run a quick test

6) Stop services

7) View logs

Tool Invocation Format

How Tools Are Called

Adding Custom Tools

Agent Client

Configuration

Security Model

Troubleshooting

`tool` Descriptor

`ToolGroup` Base Class