Tooled joint
A control joint formed by pressing a grooving tool into fresh concrete rather than sawing it later. Standard on residential sidewalks and small flatwork.
What does tooled joint mean?
Tooling produces a rounded, finished edge that many people find more attractive than a saw cut, and it requires no second mobilization. Its limitation is depth: a shallow decorative groove does not create a real weak plane, and slabs jointed only cosmetically crack wherever they like. It must be done during the finishing window, which limits it to placements a crew can joint by hand.
In practice
If a sidewalk cracks two feet from a pretty tooled line, the groove was decoration rather than a working control joint.