Workflows and prompts

Good MCP results depend on tool sequence as much as tool selection. These workflows keep context small, make missing data explicit, and preserve citations.

Company orientation

Use when the user names a company but the exact symbol or available data is not known.

1. search_companies({ query: "Uber" })
2. Select the matching identity and canonical symbol.
3. get_coverage({ symbol: "UBER:US" })
4. Call only datasets with non-zero coverage.

Prompt:

Resolve the company first, inspect Signals coverage, and tell me which cited
datasets are available before answering. Do not interpret a zero coverage count
as a financial value.

Company-native KPI trend

Use for issuer-defined measures such as gross bookings, NRR, deliveries, paid members, or segment revenue.

1. get_coverage({ symbol })
2. list_company_kpis({ symbol })
3. Match the user's concept to an exact returned metric_key.
4. get_kpi_series({ symbol, metric_key, limit })
5. Present values with the supporting quote and source URL.

Prompt:

Find Uber's reported gross bookings KPI. Discover the metric key rather than
guessing it, retrieve one series, summarize the trend, and cite every numeric
claim with the returned SEC or IR URL and verbatim quote.

Earnings event packet

Use when the user wants the filing, release, and call for the same quarter.

1. list_events({ symbol })
2. Choose the event by date and type.
3. get_event({ event_id })
4. If full text is needed, use the returned accession or transcript ID with get_filing or get_transcript.

Prompt:

Build a source packet for the latest earnings event. Keep the filing, earnings
release, IR documents, and transcript tied to the same event. Distinguish
management's words from normalized financial facts.

Search, then verify in context

Use for narrative questions such as pricing, competition, guidance, or risk.

1. search_corpus({ query, symbols })
2. Inspect cited snippets and source kind.
3. Fetch the matching filing, event, or transcript.
4. Quote enough surrounding context to avoid reversing meaning.

Prompt:

Search first-party disclosures for comments about autonomous-vehicle pricing.
Use snippets only to locate evidence; fetch the underlying document before
drawing a conclusion. Return source URLs and clearly label any inference.

Public positioning data

These tools can be called independently after get_coverage:

• list_insider_transactions
• list_congress_trades
• list_institutional_holders
• get_short_interest_series

Prompt:

Summarize recent public positioning disclosures for AAPL. Keep Form 4, STOCK
Act, 13F, and FINRA data in separate sections because their reporting windows
and meanings differ. Cite each section and do not turn the result into
personalized investment advice.

Golden checks for agent builders

Before shipping an integration, rehearse at least these cases:

For raw envelopes, domain errors, and retry semantics, see Protocol and errors.