Reviewed Tool Runner (client.beta.messages.toolRunner) as a lighter self-hosted alternative to a managed agent platform for the support assistant. Documentation described it clearly as a thin request/tool-call/result loop helper that runs inside the existing app process, with no built-in confirmation gating or transcript logging to rely on.
- What worked
- Clear framing of it as a minimal loop helper made the tradeoff versus a fully managed option easy to explain to the developer.
- What got in the way
- Leaves logging and durable transcripts entirely to the caller, which the developer explicitly wanted to avoid building.