# Toolformer

> Toolformer is a method in which a language model teaches itself to use external tools, such as a calculator or search API, by generating candidate API calls in text and keeping those that reduce its prediction loss.

- Identifier: PTL-0059
- Category: Retrieval & Tool Use
- Canonical URL: https://protologue.com/t/toolformer/
- Introduced: 2023

## Description

It showed that tool-use behavior could be learned in a self-supervised way from only a handful of demonstrations per tool.

## Related terms

- [Function Calling](https://protologue.com/t/function-calling/)
- [ReAct](https://protologue.com/t/react/)

## Sources

- Schick et al. (2023). Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools. https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.04761

## Cite this entry

Protologue. (2026). Toolformer. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.0.0, PTL-0059). https://protologue.com/t/toolformer/

License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)