Discovery Catalog

Compatibility

This skill is read-only and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux through PowerShell. PowerShell 7+ (pwsh) is recommended for consistent table rendering, though the dispatcher also works in Windows PowerShell 5.1 with less polished wrapping.

Overview

Read-only inventory of the Discovery catalog repo. One dispatcher script (scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1) supports list and item-inspection invocations:

Repo layout the script handles

The catalog uses a flat layout — one folder per agent or starter kit directly under the parent directory:

Inclusion rules:

• An "agent" is any folder containing an agent.yaml.
• A "starter kit" is any folder containing a kit.json.
• Folders without those files (shared helpers, README-only directories) are silently skipped.
• The agents/tmp/ scratch directory used by the deployer skills is always skipped.

Publisher and party come from the asset's metadata, not from the folder location:

• For an agent: metadata.yaml → publisher.name (publisher) and publisher.party (1p / 3p).
• For a starter kit: kit.json → author.name (publisher) and the top-level party field.

If publisher.name / author.name is missing, the publisher is reported as (unspecified).

When to Use

Use this skill whenever the user wants to know what is in the catalog. Trigger phrases include but are not limited to:

• "What agents are in this repo?" / "List the agents" / "Show me the catalog"
• "Who are the publishers?" / "Which partners have agents?"
• "What starter kits do we have?" / "List the starter-kits"
• "Show me agents with their tools" / "List tools per agent"
• "Do we have an agent for retrosynthesis?" (use -Tag retrosynthesis)
• "Which agents are missing a tool?" (use -WithoutToolsOnly)
• Before invoking discovery-services-agent-deployer, when the user isn't sure of the exact agent folder name

Inputs

The skill is fully read-only and needs no Azure config. All inputs are positional or named parameters on scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1.

Invalid combinations exit with a non-zero code and a friendly message (e.g. agents foo, publishers list-tools).

Process

Mapping /discovery-catalog ... requests to invocations

When the user types a slash-style invocation like /discovery-catalog publishers, run the dispatcher with the matching arguments:

Use -Format Table for all catalog responses. Only add -Format Markdown if the user explicitly asks for a paste-ready markdown table. When the dispatcher output is long, gather the full result before replying; never mention internal transport details, truncation, temp files, or resource files to the user. Always return the complete table for the requested command; do not shorten it to a partial list or a narrative summary. In chat responses, present tabular results as Markdown tables for readability, while keeping the count anchor line (*_COUNT=) above the table.

How the dispatcher works (internal — for skill maintainers)

1. Resolve repo root via git rev-parse --show-toplevel.
2. Walk agents/ and/or starter-kits/ one level deep, skipping tmp/.
3. Inclusion: agent folders need agent.yaml; starter-kit folders need kit.json.
4. For each entry, parse the appropriate metadata file:
   • Agent: metadata.yaml for name, version, description, tags, plus the nested publisher.name and publisher.party.
   • Starter kit: kit.json for name, version, description, category, party, author.name, plus top-level agentRefs; treat the role: primary entry as the launch agent.
   • Tool (when agents list-tools): tool.yaml for name; folder name as fallback.
5. Apply filters: -Publisher, -Tag, -WithToolsOnly, -WithoutToolsOnly.
6. Sort by name (and publisher where applicable).
7. Render in the requested format.

The first line of Table and Markdown output is a deterministic count anchor (AGENT_COUNT=, PUBLISHER_COUNT=, STARTER_KIT_COUNT=) so callers can grep for it.

Output Format

discovery-catalog publishers

PUBLISHER_COUNT=2

Publisher              Party AgentCount StarterKits
---------              ----- ---------- -----------
Contoso Legal Tech     3p             1           0
Microsoft              1p            41           2

discovery-catalog agents

AGENT_COUNT=41

Agent                 Publisher  Party
----                 ---------  -----
aizynthfinder        Microsoft  1p
online-researcher    Microsoft  1p
...

discovery-catalog agents list-tools

AGENT_COUNT=41

Agent                  Publisher  Tools
----                  ---------  -----
aizynthfinder         Microsoft  tools/aizynthfinder
bookshelf-researcher  Microsoft  (no tools)
...

discovery-catalog starter-kits

STARTER_KIT_COUNT=2

Starter-Kit                  Publisher  Category
----                         ---------  --------
drug-discovery               Microsoft  Chemistry
protein-structure-analysis   Microsoft  Biology

discovery-catalog <agent-name> describe

Name           Publisher  Version HasTool Description
----           ---------  ------- ------- -----------
aizynthfinder  Microsoft  1.0.0      True Expert agent for retrosynthetic route planning using AiZynthFinder...

discovery-catalog <starterkit-name> describe

Name            Publisher  Version Category  AgentCount Description
----            ---------  ------- --------  ---------- -----------
drug-discovery  Microsoft  1.0.0   Chemistry          5 Accelerate small-molecule drug discovery...

discovery-catalog <agent-name> list-tools

Agent          Publisher  Version ToolCount Tools         Description
-----          ---------  ------- --------- -----         -----------
aizynthfinder  Microsoft  1.0.0           1 aizynthFinder Expert agent for retrosynthetic route planning using AiZynthFinder...

Examples

Example 1: List publishers

User: "Who publishes agents in this repo?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 publishers

Example 2: List all agents

User: "What agents do we have?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 agents

Example 3: List agents with their tools

User: "Show me each agent and the tools it ships."

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 agents list-tools

Example 4: List starter kits

User: "What starter kits are available?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 starter-kits

Example 5: Describe a specific item

User: "Describe the drug-discovery starter kit"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 drug-discovery describe

User: "Describe aizynthfinder"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 aizynthfinder describe

Example 6: Show tools for one agent

User: "List tools for aizynthfinder"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 aizynthfinder list-tools

Example 7: Filtered queries

User: "Which agents have a retrosynthesis tag?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 agents -Tag retrosynthesis

User: "Which agents don't have a tool yet?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 agents -WithoutToolsOnly

User: "Which agents are published by Microsoft?"

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 agents -Publisher Microsoft

Example 8: Markdown for a doc

User: "Give me a markdown table of all starter kits I can paste into a README."

pwsh -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .github/skills/discovery-catalog/scripts/discovery-catalog.ps1 starter-kits -Format Markdown

Guidelines

• Read-only: never writes to the repo or to Azure. Safe to run repeatedly.
• Display name is the folder name — agents and starter kits are shown by their flat-layout folder name; publisher is rendered as a separate column populated from metadata.yaml/kit.json.
• Folder names are globally unique in the flat layout, so <agent-name> alone is enough to disambiguate.
• Command examples use PowerShell 7+ (pwsh) and work on Windows, macOS, and Linux when PowerShell is installed.
• Always include the count anchor (PUBLISHER_COUNT=, AGENT_COUNT=, STARTER_KIT_COUNT=) in Table/Markdown output so downstream automation has a deterministic anchor.
• Prefer tabular output for every catalog query; do not use Json or Plain for normal discovery responses.
• Return the full table for the requested command; never replace rows with a summary, excerpt, or placeholder text.
• Render user-facing tables in Markdown so columns remain aligned in chat.
• Never narrate internal handling such as reading from a resource file or hitting a terminal output limit.
• Don't crash on missing metadata — entries with missing metadata.yaml or unparseable kit.json are silently skipped (kits) or shown with empty fields (agents). Missing publisher.name is rendered as (unspecified).
• Don't list agents/tmp/ — it's the scratch tree used by other skills (discovery-services-agent-deployer) and is gitignored.
• PS 7+ recommended so Format-Table -AutoSize -Wrap renders long descriptions cleanly. The script works in Windows PowerShell 5.1 too but wrapping is uglier.
• Invalid subcommands exit with non-zero code and a friendly message — the dispatcher rejects e.g. agents foo or publishers list-tools.