Master Llama 3 Tool Calling: A Step-by-Step AI Agent Guide

Meta recently released the Llama 3 and 3.1 model family, including the 8b, 70b, and 405b parameter models. Model 3.1 natively supports tool calling, making it one of the best open-source large language models (LLMs) for agent automation.

This article will discuss tool calling in LLMs and how to use Llama 3.1’s tool calling feature on Groq to build capable AI agents.

In this article, we will cover:

1. The basics of tool calling.
2. How to use Llama 3.1 on Groq Cloud for tool calling.
3. How to use Composio tools with LlamaIndex to build a research agent.

But before that, let’s dive into what tool calling actually is.

Note: We will use the terms “tool calling” and “function calling” interchangeably, as they refer to more or less the same concept.

What Is Tool Calling?

Tools are functions that allow large language models (LLMs) to interact with external applications. They provide an interface for the LLM to access and retrieve information from external sources.

Despite the name, LLMs do not directly call the tools themselves. Instead, when they determine that a request requires a tool, they generate a structured schema specifying the appropriate tool and the necessary parameters.

For example, suppose an LLM has access to web browsing tools that accept text parameters. When a user asks it to fetch information about a recent event, instead of just generating text, the LLM will generate a JSON schema for the Internet tool, which you can then use to call that function/tool.

Below is a diagram illustrating how tool calling works.

What Is Groq?

Groq is an AI inference provider that hosts open-source models like Mistral, Gemma, Whisper, and Llama. They are an industry-leading platform providing the fastest AI inference, which makes it ideal for building capable agentic systems.

This article will demonstrate how you can use Groq Cloud to build AI agents using Composio tools.

Creating a Groq API Key

You will need an API key to use the LLMs hosted by Groq Cloud. So, visit Groq Cloud and create a key.