Daniele
5765941758
The agent had no way to know its container ships ffmpeg, ripgrep or tesseract, so it either declined work it could do or spent a round finding out. This adds a command list to the system prompt as a **discovery hint** — explicitly not an inventory. Every decision follows from it being a hint: - The allowlist (~35 entries, `container/commands.rs`) is the curation; a full PATH dump is 800 entries of coreutils noise. The probe exists so the list cannot *lie*, not so it can discover: `command -v` at login means we never announce something a container recreate threw away. - The rendered prose says the list is partial and names `command -v`, so a tool outside the allowlist costs one check rather than a wrong conclusion. An empty probe renders as an explicit "could not be read", never as silence under a heading promising a list. - Order is the allowlist's own, grouped by kind of work — the grouping is the curation, and the reader is a model, not a grep. - Staleness is cheap both ways, so there is no invalidation machinery: a login-time snapshot on `UserContext`, non-fatal, refreshed at next login. The gate is the tool, not the sentinel. Every AGENT.md carries `common/sandbox.md` — the four system agents included — and the section is emitted iff the turn's model is shown `execute_cmd`, derived from `allow_tools` plus the security group's visibility filter for a root turn and from `child_defs` for a sub-agent: always the same definitions the model will see. `has_execute_cmd` therefore joins the PrefixCache key, since the group is switchable mid-conversation and that switch already rewrites the tool payload in the same provider cache. The fragment holds only the heading and one stable sentence; every conditional claim lives in the renderer, because prose promising `sudo apt-get install` is not the renderer's to retract when the tool is absent. `execute_cmd`'s own description loses `(python + node available)`: its job is steering away from the shell, and a capability advertisement diluted it.
Agents
Adding a new agent: the skills index is opt-in
An agent sees the installed skills only if its AGENT.md carries the
<!-- SKILLS_LIST --> placeholder, normally through
<!-- INCLUDE: common/skills.md -->. There is no meta.json flag: the sentinel
is the switch, exactly as it is for <!-- MCP_LIST -->.
So a new agent starts without the index and stays without it until someone
adds the line. That is the deliberate direction of the default: the opposite one
— an agent inheriting the index by forgetfulness — is the worse failure, because
the index is written in the imperative ("you MUST read its SKILL.md") and an
unattended type: system agent has its approvals auto-denied and sometimes no
tools at all.
common/skills.md is one line and deliberately holds no prose, unlike
common/mcp.md. Every word — the imperative header, the list, the closing rules
— is produced by the renderer, so that an instance with no skills installed gets
an empty string instead of a header promising a list that isn't there. (That is
not hypothetical: the MCP section keeps its prose in the fragment, and its empty
state once had the model invent a discovery tool to fill the gap.) The fragment
cannot explain itself in place either — resolve_includes copies any line that
is not an upper-case sentinel straight into the prompt, so a comment there would
be read by the model.
The rule of thumb: a chat or task agent gets the include, a system agent
does not. Put the line as low as possible in the prompt (by convention right
after common/mcp.md) — anything above it survives in the provider's cached
prefix when a skill is added or removed. crates/skald-core/src/agents.rs has a
test that holds every shipped agent to this.
Agent icons — style guide
Each agent in the agents/ directory can have an icon/avatar declared in the "icon" field of its meta.json. The backend serves the file via GET /api/agents/{id}/icon.
Visual style
Icons are generated with Vector Paintings LoRA via ComfyUI in a warm, family-friendly style:
- Style: painterly vector — bold shapes fused with expressive brushstrokes
- Technique: vivid colours, emotion, motion, warm lighting
- Format: square (1024×1024), rendered as a character portrait
- Background: warm, cozy, medium-bright (no dark/no neon)
- Subject: a warm animal character representing the agent's role, with contextual elements (tools, symbols, objects)
- Palette: terracotta, amber, warm gold, coral, soft teal — warm and inviting
- Trigger word:
VectorPaintDaalmust be included at the start of the prompt
Prompt template
VectorPaintDaal. A warm friendly {ANIMAL} character with a gentle smile, wearing {CLOTHING/ACCESSORIES}. It holds {OBJECT} and around it float {SYMBOLS}. Warm golden light, cozy atmosphere. {DOMINANT_COLOURS} palette. Expressive bold brushstrokes, painterly vector style. Family-friendly illustration, portrait of a kind {ROLE}.
Per-agent reference
Chat agents — warm animals
| Agent | Animal | Role | Elements | Palette |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main Assistant 🦊 | Fox | General assistant | Glowing threads connecting a heart, star, house | Terracotta, amber, gold |
| Project Coordinator 🦡 | Badger | Family coordinator | Floating threads linking heart, star, house, smiling face; cozy kitchen table | Terracotta, amber, gold, coral |
| Researcher 🐿️ | Squirrel | Curious researcher | Glowing book, magnifying glass, compass, scrolls, stars | Terracotta, amber, soft teal, coral |
| Generalist 🦫 | Beaver | Handy executor | Glowing multitool, wrench, paintbrush, trowel, cooking pot | Terracotta, orange, amber, timber |
| Code Explorer 🕵️ | Meerkat | Curious analyst | Magnifying glass, data trails, sparkling code symbols | Terracotta, amber, deep blue, gold |
| Software Architect 🏗️ | Heron | Thoughtful planner | Floating blueprints, geometric shapes, building blocks | Terracotta, soft teal, amber, pale gold |
| Software Engineer 🔧 | Bear | Focused builder | Glowing wrench, gears, circuit board, hammer, sparks | Terracotta, orange, amber, steel grey |
| Spec Writer 📝 | Owl | Wise scribe | Glowing quill, scrolls, open books, words floating mid-air | Deep indigo, burnished gold, amber, cream |
| Tech Lead 👑 | Stag | Confident strategist | Holographic kanban board, task cards, sub-agent symbols | Warm amber, deep teal, gold, coral |
| Business Analyst 💼 | Magpie | Thoughtful evaluator | Glowing clipboard, floating documents, abacus, data points | Deep indigo, gold, soft teal, amber |
| Companion 🦦 | Otter | Children's friend | Glowing pencil, smiling sun, star, open book, paintbrush | Soft coral, amber, gold, gentle teal |
System agents — insect family
System agents (type: "system") are invisible background agents that maintain the platform. They use insect characters to visually distinguish them from chat-facing agents.
| Agent | Animal | Role | Elements | Palette |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event triage 👁️ | Spider 🕷️ | Watchful guardian | Sensor nodes, glowing web, radar arcs, notification symbols (bell, letter, calendar) | Dark purple, amber, soft cyan, warm grey |
| Private Memory Lint 🧹 | Firefly ✨ | Private memory caretaker | Glowing lantern, memory fragments, tiny notes, sparkles | Warm gold, amber, soft teal, gentle green |
| Shared Memory Lint 🧹 | Bee 🐝 | Shared space caretaker | Scroll with guidelines, honey dipper, honeycomb shapes, tiny documents | Warm amber, gold, soft teal, honey |
Adding a new agent icon
- Generate the image using the Vector Paintings prompt template above (include
VectorPaintDaalat the start) - Save it as
agents/{agent_id}/icon.png - Add
"icon": "icon.png"to the agent'smeta.json(if not already present) - No code changes needed — the backend serves whatever file path is declared in the manifest