When Function Calls Turn Into Plain Text, Suspect the Property Names in Your Tool Declarations
A record of chasing MALFORMED_FUNCTION_CALL after output limits and schema conflicts were ruled out, bisecting nine tool declarations down to one property name, and adding a linter that stops bad names before they ship.
A Timeout Was Never Evidence of Failure — Designing Around Blocking Function Calls
When a tool call cannot return until the real-world effect finishes, two habits reverse on you: parallel dispatch and generous timeouts. Measured numbers from a sandbox harness, plus the design that replaces retries with observation.
Surfacing AdMob Floor Price Candidates from Weekly Reports with Gemini 2.5 Pro — A Six-App Indie Operations Note
A practical pipeline for moving AdMob floor price tuning from gut feel to data, using Gemini 2.5 Pro to read weekly CSV exports. Notes from operating six wallpaper apps in parallel, with Function Calling to produce structured candidate values.
Production-Ready Function Calling with Gemini 2.5 Pro API — Realistic Patterns for Failures, Timeouts, and Hallucinations
Gemini 2.5 Pro's Function Calling is powerful, but it tends to land in 'works, but does odd things sometimes' territory in production. Here are the design patterns I arrived at running search, reservation, and notification agents.
Gemini 3 Multi-Tool Agents: Function Calling + Built-in Tools + Context Circulation in Production
A hands-on look at Gemini 3 multi-tool agents: combining Built-in Tools with Function Calling, Context Circulation, and parallel tool IDs, with measured latency numbers and the pitfalls I hit in production.
Your Tool Results Are Quietly Eating the Conversation — Handle Passing to Keep Gemini Function Calling Contexts Lean
Tool results linger in Function Calling history and compound your input tokens every turn. Two implementations — a token-budgeted compactor and handle passing — cut my measured input by roughly 8x, with the pitfalls I hit along the way.
A Minimal Autonomous Agent with Gemini — Tool-Loop Design Lessons
Building an autonomous agent from a minimal setup with the google-genai SDK's automatic function calling — plus the step limits, tool allowlists, and retry decisions learned from automating real blog operations.
Preserving Gemini 3 Thought Signatures So Multi-Turn Function Calling Doesn't Degrade
When you build function calling on Gemini 3 thinking models, reasoning quality often drops from the second turn onward. The cause is usually a dropped thought signature. Here is how to keep it and verify the effect.
Why Gemini API Returns MALFORMED_FUNCTION_CALL — Causes and Fixes
Hit by finishReason: MALFORMED_FUNCTION_CALL in production? Three root causes, how to diagnose each, and the workarounds that actually worked in our indie iOS/Android pipeline.
Building a B2B Business Automation SaaS with Gemini 2.5 Pro Function Calling — Revenue Blueprint
A complete guide to building and selling B2B business automation SaaS using Gemini 2.5 Pro Function Calling. Covers API architecture, multi-tenant design, pricing strategy, and the sales process that closed first contracts within 3 weeks of demo.
Implementing Structured Output with Gemini Function Calling — Multi-Tool Design Patterns
A practical guide to reliable structured output with Gemini API Function Calling — covering tool definition best practices, multi-tool coordination, and error handling.
Building Local Agents with Gemma 4's Function Calling
Learn how to implement private, on-premises AI agents using Gemma 4's dedicated Function Calling tokens without relying on cloud APIs.