surveying-capabilitieslisted

# Plan against the machine you have A plan that assumes a tool this machine lacks is not a plan, it is a wish. It fails halfway through, after the expensive steps, when replanning costs the most. The opposite failure is just as common: the machine has a specialist skill for exactly this work, the agent never looks, and reinvents a worse version by hand. This skill closes both gaps by resolving abstract capability needs to concrete local providers before anything is planned. Answer the user in whatever language they wrote in. ## The two layers ``` Task needs a capability capability: web-research | | resolved here, against this machine v Bound to a real provider provider: <a research skill that is installed> fallback: fetch tool + user-supplied URLs ``` Skills stay portable because they never name a tool. Plans become concrete because every step names one. ## Procedure **1. Introspect first — it is usually free.** Most harnesses already give you your tools, your installed skills and their descriptions, and your subagents. Read that before spending a turn on anything else. If your harness does *not* expose one of those lists, say so and probe for it instead. Absence from your context is not proof of absence from the machine — treating it as proof manufactures false capability gaps, which is the same error this pack forbids everywhere else. **2. Derive needs from the brief.** List the capabiliti