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capabilities.md

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Capabilities

Purpose

agentcli separates the control-plane contract from backend execution details. Capabilities make that split explicit and machine-readable.

Capability Groups

Control-plane capabilities:

  • schema
  • describe
  • validate
  • compile
  • apply
  • json-rpc

Inspection capabilities:

  • inspect
  • field-mask
  • sanitize-basic
  • ndjson

Execution-shape capabilities:

  • model-policy
  • execution-intent
  • output-hints
  • timeout-support
  • context-retrieval

Runtime capabilities:

  • runtime-execution
  • durability
  • retry
  • approval-gates
  • delivery
  • lineage

Programmatic Discovery

agentcli targets returns structured data for each target with two fields:

  • capabilities: a string array of active capability identifiers (matching the control-plane and inspection groups above, using dash-delimited names like field-mask)
  • features: a keyed object where each key corresponds to an execution-shape or runtime capability (using underscore-delimited names like model_policy, execution_intent) and each value describes the support level. Valid values: "portable", "runtime", "model+thinking", "intent-only", true, or false. The "model+thinking" value indicates the target compiles model policy into separate model and thinking fields for the backend. true indicates full runtime support; false indicates the feature is not supported.

Feature keys: approvals, model_policy, execution_intent, output_hints, timeout_support, context_retrieval, runtime_execution.

Current Target Matrix

standalone

Provides:

  • schema
  • describe
  • validate
  • compile
  • json-rpc
  • portable model-policy
  • portable execution-intent
  • portable output-hints
  • portable timeout-support
  • portable context-retrieval

Does not provide:

  • durable execution
  • retries
  • delivery
  • lineage

Provides in agentcli exec (single-machine, non-durable):

  • approval-gates (local enforcement): refuses execution of tasks whose approval.policy is manual without a matching, unconsumed, unrevoked, unexpired ssh-signed grant in ~/.agentcli/state/approvals.ndjson; refuses unconditionally when policy is auto-reject

Interpretation:

  • approval fields declared at authoring time are both portable plan metadata AND enforced locally by agentcli exec (grants managed via agentcli approve and agentcli approvals)
  • durable multi-actor and cron-triggered approval flows still require a runtime target such as openclaw-scheduler
  • plan/read-only intent is preserved in the compiled plan
  • output hints and budgets are preserved for another backend or consumer

openclaw-scheduler

Provides through compile or inspection:

  • compile
  • apply
  • inspect
  • field-mask
  • sanitize-basic
  • ndjson
  • model-policy
  • execution-intent
  • output-hints
  • timeout-support
  • context-retrieval

Provides in the runtime itself:

  • runtime-execution
  • durability
  • retry
  • approval-gates
  • delivery
  • lineage

Interpretation:

  • model policy compiles into scheduler model and thinking fields
  • plan/read-only intent compiles into runtime execution-boundary fields
  • output hints compile into scheduler output preview/offload budgets
  • queue, approval, and fan-out budgets compile into runtime guardrails

Why This Matters

Adopters should not assume every target is a full runtime, and they should not assume every backend enforces every field the same way.

The value of agentcli is that the manifest contract remains stable while target support varies in explicit ways.

That lets:

  • lightweight tools implement authoring only
  • protocol bridges implement validation and compilation
  • runtimes implement execution without owning authoring UX
  • operators inspect exactly which features are portable versus runtime-enforced