CrewAI Hierarchical Process: Can manager agents have tools? Getting "orange" error when manager agent has tools

Crews
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I’m working with CrewAI version 0.201.1 and trying to implement a hierarchical travel planning process with a manager agent that has tools, but I’m running into an internal error. I want to confirm whether manager agents in hierarchical processes are supposed to support tools.

I have a hierarchical crew setup with a manager agent responsible for coordinating trip planning. The manager should be able to use tools to update trip progress:

from crewai import Agent, Crew, Task, Process

# Manager agent with tools
def create_manager_agent(self) -> Agent:
    update_itinerary_tool = update_trip_status()

    return Agent(
        role="Travel Planning Manager",
        goal="Coordinate the trip planning process by delegating tasks to specialized agents",
        backstory="""You are an expert orchestration manager for planning trips. 
        You coordinate the itinerary, book flights and hotels, and refine preferences 
        based on the traveler’s needs. You ensure each planning step is completed 
        before moving to the next. Once a step is done, use the update_trip_status 
        tool to mark it as completed.""",
        verbose=True,
        allow_delegation=True,
        tools=[update_itinerary_tool],  # <-- This seems to cause issues
    )

# Hierarchical crew setup
crew = Crew(
    agents=agent_instances,
    manager_agent=self.create_manager_agent(),
    tasks=tasks,
    process=Process.hierarchical,
    verbose=True,
)

result = crew.kickoff()  # <-- Fails with "orange" error

When I run this, I get an internal CrewAI error with the message 'orange'. It happens during crew.kickoff() and appears to be an internal CrewAI issue, not something from my own code.

What I’ve Tried

  1. Removing tools from the manager agent – If I remove the tools=[update_itinerary_tool] line, the hierarchical process works fine, but then the manager can’t update trip statuses.
  2. Using sequential process – With a sequential process, the manager agent + tools combination works perfectly.
  3. Different tool configurations – Any attempt to give the manager tools in hierarchical mode seems to break it.

Are manager agents in hierarchical processes designed to support tools?