Epic: capability-based agent task routing and delegation

[graycyrus]

Summary

An agent can already delegate by name (delegate_to_desk/delegate_to_teammate), but only if it already knows who to ask. There's no automatic "I lack tool X, agent Y holds tool X, route there" matching on either delegation or task assignment today (src/company/task_intent.rs has no capability-to-tool matching logic).

This is the operator's original ask: an agent should be able to pick up a task, and delegate/hand off to another agent when it lacks the right tool, end to end. Distinct from HiveMind (separate epic), which is dispatch-free deliberation, not routing.

Plan

• Design a capability registry (agent → tools it holds)
• Auto-routing: match a missing-tool need to a capable agent in delegation
• Wire capability matching into task assignment/pickup

Part of

September 2026 roadmap.

[tinysweeper]

Epic: capability-based agent task routing and delegation for automatic tool-handoff matching

Labelled priority: p3.

[stratumpraxis]

One design edge case worth pinning before the registry shape hardens: I would avoid representing capability as a single agent -> tools[] list.

For routing, three states matter independently:

• declared capability — the agent knows how to use tool X
• runtime availability — tool X is actually connected/healthy for that agent now
• authorization — this task/tenant/action is permitted to use X through that agent

Otherwise an automatic handoff can select a nominally capable agent and silently inherit authority or credentials that the delegating agent never had.

A useful routing contract could make the task carry required_capabilities, then record selected_agent + matched_capabilities + routing_reason on the delegated execution. If no candidate satisfies all required capabilities and authorization/availability checks, return an explicit UNROUTABLE state instead of picking the nearest match.

That also gives you a clean regression case: agent A lacks tool X; agent B declares X but is unavailable/unauthorized; agent C declares X and is available+authorized -> only C is eligible. The execution record then gives operators enough evidence to audit why the handoff happened and detect capability drift later.