Tools and Skills

Tools and Skills

Built-in tools — 56

Callable by the council during a task. The categories:

Category	Examples
Filesystem	read_file, write_file, list_files, find_files, grep_search
Shell	shell_command — platform-aware; /bin/sh on POSIX, cmd/PowerShell on Windows
Web	web_search, http_request, download_file
Obsidian	search_obsidian, read_obsidian_note, write_obsidian_note, obsidian_list_notes
Memory	recall_archive, query_learning
Interaction	ask_user_options — elicitation when the task is underspecified
Browser	16 stealth browser tools, via an external bridge on :8781

Every tool call passes the PRE_ACT gate first — see Governance Engine.

web_search has a provider layer

Without an API key it falls back to free scrapers, which are unreliable in practice (rate limits, dead public instances). Setting any one of BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY, TAVILY_API_KEY, or SERPER_API_KEY in .env gives a deterministic primary source; the free providers remain as fallback and the output format is identical either way.

When every source fails, it says so and explicitly instructs the model not to fabricate results.

Skills — 22 indexed

Skills are markdown protocols, not code. The Capability-Skill registry indexes them at startup:

[CSA] capability-skill registry armed — 22 skill(s) indexed

curl http://127.0.0.1:8766/api/skills          # what is available

Skills are resolved by capability, not by name — the system asks "what can do X?" rather than requiring the caller to know which skill exists.

Adding your own skill

Drop a folder under backend/skills/<your-skill>/ containing a SKILL.md with frontmatter:

---
name: your-skill-name
description: |
  What it does, and when it should trigger. Be explicit about triggers —
  this text is what decides whether the skill fires.
---

Restart; the registry re-indexes. See the shipped skills for the house style.

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