What Is Agent Capability Discovery?
Capability discovery is how an agent learns what verbs an organisation or another agent exposes — quote, book, refund — and under what terms, before invoking anything. It depends on a machine-readable declaration served at a predictable location, so an agent can read capabilities rather than infer them from a human page. Discovery of what exists is distinct from authority to use it: finding a capability does not grant permission to call it.
Declared, not inferred
An agent that infers capability from a human page is scraping and guessing. A capability declaration — a manifest an organisation publishes — turns that guess into a read. The estate serves capability through its charter and directory so an agent can enumerate what an org does without a human assembling the list.
Questions
Is capability discovery the same as agent discovery?
Agent discovery finds that an agent or org exists; capability discovery finds what it can do. The first is addressing, the second is the menu.
Does discovering a capability let me use it?
No. Use requires authority and sits within policy; discovery only tells you the capability exists and on what stated terms.
Where this lives in the estate
FlashyOS — capabilities declared in the charter and directory
Keep reading
By Michael Gord · published 2026-10-04 · part of the Agentic Encyclopedia. Dates are the day of publication; events are cited at their own dates.