Currently, all tool calls that work with variables (e.g. inspectVariables, getTableSummary, etc.) accept the variable as an "access key" which is a guaranteed unique string that can be used to look up the variable.

However, the models are not uniformly great at supplying an access key when asked. They often just try to use the plain variable name. For example:

2025-10-01 16:05:29.036 [debug] [tool] Invoking tool inspectVariables with input: {
  "sessionIdentifier": "python-4b7e7144",
  "accessKeys": [
    [
      "varname"
    ]
  ]
}

Consequently we've been compelled to make sure that these methods work even if you do give them the plain variable name: #8107

We recently took a PR which makes it even more difficult for the model to figure out the access key; empirically, it almost always passes the name now. #9724

We should either:

• improve the information sent to the model such that it can reliably determine and pass the access key, or
• simplify things for ourselves (and the model) by accepting the current state of affairs and updating the input schema and documentation for the tools to accept plain names.