Tutorials Prompt Engineering Tutorial
Function Calling — Complete Guide
Function Calling — Complete Guide: free step-by-step lesson with examples, common mistakes, and interview tips — part of Prompt Engineering Tutorial on Toolliyo Academy.
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Prompt Engineering Tutorial · Lesson 34 of 100
Function Calling
Prompts → Apps
Prompts · 1 — Basics · ~6 min · Module 4: Structured Outputs
What is this?
Function calling (OpenAI-style) lets the model return structured tool invocations — function name plus JSON arguments — instead of prose.
Why should you care?
PromptVerse agents declare functions like search_docs and create_ticket for the model to invoke.
See it live — copy this example
Copy the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude, or your LLM API playground and compare outputs.
tools = [{ type: "function", function: {
name: "search_docs",
parameters: { type: "object", properties: { query: { type: "string" } }, required: ["query"] }
}}]
messages = [{ role: "user", content: "Find refund policy for annual plans" }]
// model may return tool_calls[0].function.arguments
What happened?
- Tools array defines callable surface.
- Model emits tool_calls when it needs data; your server runs search_docs and returns tool role message.
Practice next
- Register one function in playground.
- Trigger a query needing search.
- Execute function server-side.
- Add optional top_k integer param.
- Require human approval before destructive tools.
Remember
Schema defines safe parameters. Server executes — model does not. Allow-list tool names.
Doc search tool
Chatbot answers policy questions.
Outcome: Model calls search_docs instead of guessing policy text.
Interview prep for this lesson
Practice these questions aloud after reading—each links to a full structured answer.
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