Capability Namespace

Accepted

The Capability namespace is the registry of all Capability IDs that Adapters and Modules can declare and that Archetype Slots can require. This document is the governance reference for that registry.

For the concept itself, see Concepts → Capability.

Governance Model

Capabilities are governed under the hybrid model established in ADR-0019:

• The registry is centrally maintained by the platform team
• New Capabilities can be proposed by Manifest authors (human or agent) as needs emerge
• Proposals go through review by a Human Reviewer (for new categories) or automated checks (for additions within existing categories)
• Admitted Capabilities become available immediately for Manifest declaration and Slot requirement

Capability ID Format

capability:<category>/<capability-name>/v<N>

Rules:

• All lowercase
• <category> is a single segment (no further nesting)
• <capability-name> is kebab-case
• v<N> is an integer version (v1, v2, etc.)
• No whitespace or special characters

MVP Capability Seed List

The following Capabilities are admitted in the v1 platform release. Authors and agents reference this list; additions go through the proposal process.

Category: persistence

Capability	Description
capability:persistence/crud/v1	Create, read, update, delete operations on entities
capability:persistence/transactions/v1	Transaction support (modes: jta, local)
capability:persistence/pagination/v1	Paginated query results (styles: offset, cursor)
capability:persistence/query-dsl/v1	Programmatic query DSL (dialects: jpql, criteria, native)
capability:persistence/migrations/v1	Schema migration support
capability:persistence/jdbc/v1	Raw JDBC driver capability

Category: auth

Capability	Description
capability:auth/password/v1	Username + password authentication
capability:auth/token-issuance/v1	Issue authentication tokens (types: jwt, opaque)
capability:auth/token-validation/v1	Validate received tokens
capability:auth/sso/v1	Single sign-on via external IdP (protocols: saml, oidc, cas)
capability:auth/mfa/v1	Multi-factor authentication (factors: totp, webauthn, sms, email)
capability:auth/rbac/v1	Role-based access control
capability:auth/audit-log/v1	Authentication event logging

Category: messaging

Capability	Description
capability:messaging/publish/v1	Publish messages to a broker
capability:messaging/subscribe/v1	Subscribe to broker topics
capability:messaging/streaming/v1	Stream-style consumption
capability:messaging/dead-letter/v1	Dead-letter queue handling

Category: observability

Capability	Description
capability:observability/metrics/v1	Numerical metric emission
capability:observability/tracing/v1	Distributed tracing
capability:observability/logging/v1	Structured logging
capability:observability/health-checks/v1	Health and readiness endpoints

Category: llm

Capability	Description
capability:llm/completion/v1	Text completion API
capability:llm/streaming/v1	Streaming response support
capability:llm/tool-use/v1	Function/tool calling support
capability:llm/embedding/v1	Embedding generation
capability:llm/structured-output/v1	Structured output via schema

Category: vector-search

Capability	Description
capability:vector-search/store/v1	Store vectors with metadata
capability:vector-search/knn/v1	k-nearest-neighbors search
capability:vector-search/hybrid-retrieval/v1	Combined vector + keyword search
capability:vector-search/filtering/v1	Metadata-filtered search

Category: cache

Capability	Description
capability:cache/key-value/v1	Key-value cache operations
capability:cache/ttl/v1	Time-to-live support
capability:cache/distributed/v1	Distributed cache coordination

Category: http

Capability	Description
capability:http/server/v1	HTTP server framework
capability:http/client/v1	HTTP client
capability:http/openapi/v1	OpenAPI schema generation/consumption
capability:http/websocket/v1	WebSocket support
capability:http/sse/v1	Server-Sent Events

Category: frontend-ui

Capability	Description
capability:frontend-ui/component-library/v1	Reusable UI components
capability:frontend-ui/forms/v1	Form handling with validation
capability:frontend-ui/data-fetching/v1	Server-state management
capability:frontend-ui/routing/v1	Client-side routing
capability:frontend-ui/state-management/v1	App state management

Category: data-processing

Capability	Description
capability:data-processing/dataframe/v1	Dataframe operations
capability:data-processing/etl/v1	Extract-transform-load orchestration
capability:data-processing/validation/v1	Data schema validation
capability:data-processing/document-parsing/v1	Document text extraction

Proposing a New Capability

When authoring a Manifest and finding no Capability that fits a feature the Adapter or Module provides:

1. Check this catalog carefully for synonyms or close matches.
2. Draft a proposal with:
   • Proposed Capability ID
   • Category (new or existing)
   • Semantic description (what does “having this Capability” mean?)
   • Sub-fields if any (modes, styles, etc.)
   • At least one example Adapter or Module that would declare it
3. Submit for review through the platform’s Capability proposal workflow.
4. Wait for ratification. Human Reviewer ratifies new categories; automated checks may ratify additions to existing categories with documented criteria.
5. On admission, the new Capability is documented in this catalog and becomes available for use.

Capability Versioning

Per ADR-0010, Capabilities use integer versions. A v2 indicates a breaking change to the semantic requirements of the Capability. Adapters declaring v1 do not satisfy Slots requiring v2.

When versioning:

1. v2 is proposed as a new entry alongside v1
2. v1 remains valid for Adapters that satisfy its semantics
3. Archetypes update to require v2 when they need the new semantics
4. After a transition period, v1 may be deprecated and eventually archived

Capability Deprecation

A Capability is deprecated when:

• A successor version (v2) better captures the semantics
• The feature is no longer used by any active Archetype
• The semantics turned out to be poorly defined

Deprecated Capabilities are marked in this catalog with the deprecation date and the successor (if any). Manifests declaring deprecated Capabilities continue to be valid until the Capability is archived.

Related

• Concepts → Capability
• ADR-0019: Hybrid Capability Namespace Governance
• ADR-0008: Adapter Slots with Capability Contracts