Capabilities & Protocol Versioning

Overview

GET /capabilities is the daemon preflight endpoint. Every SDK client should read it before calling any other route so it can learn which protocol version the daemon speaks, which feature tags are enabled, and which workspace the daemon is bound to. The contract:

• There is one protocol version: v1. SERVE_PROTOCOL_VERSION = 'v1' and SUPPORTED_SERVE_PROTOCOL_VERSIONS = ['v1']. v1 is additive internally; breaking frame-shape changes are reserved for v2.
• Each tag has a since version. Future v2 daemons can advertise both v1 and v2 tags.
• Some tags are conditional. Ten tags (require_auth, mcp_workspace_pool, mcp_pool_restart, allow_origin, prompt_absolute_deadline, writer_idle_timeout, workspace_settings, session_shell_command, rate_limit, workspace_reload) are advertised only when the corresponding deployment toggle is enabled. Tag presence means the behavior exists.
• Capability tag = behavior contract. Adding new behavior under an existing tag can silently break clients that preflighted the old tag. New behavior needs a new tag.

The complete registry lives in packages/cli/src/serve/capabilities.ts.

Responsibilities

• Declare every feature the daemon may advertise.
• Filter advertised features by protocol version and deployment toggles.
• Expose getRegisteredServeFeatures() (all keys, unfiltered), getAdvertisedServeFeatures(version, toggles) (filtered), and getServeProtocolVersions() (envelope { current, supported }).
• Preserve the invariant “tag present means behavior present”. server.test.ts includes a test that every conditional tag advertises when its toggle is on; adding a conditional tag without a predicate fails that test.

Architecture

Capability envelope

/capabilities returns:

{
  v: 1,                    // CAPABILITIES_SCHEMA_VERSION
  mode: 'http-bridge',
  features: ServeFeature[],
  workspaceCwd: string,
  protocol?: { current: 'v1', supported: ['v1'] },
  policy?: { permission: PermissionPolicy },
}

workspaceCwd is the canonical workspace bound at daemon boot (see 02-serve-runtime.md). policy.permission is the active mediator policy.

ServeCapabilityDescriptor

interface ServeCapabilityDescriptor {
  since: ServeProtocolVersion; // current = 'v1'
  modes?: readonly string[]; // lists operation modes when a feature has modes
}

Two v1 tags use modes:

• mcp_guardrails: { since: 'v1', modes: ['warn', 'enforce'] } - clients should preflight 'enforce' before relying on refusal behavior.
• permission_mediation: { since: 'v1', modes: ['first-responder', 'designated', 'consensus', 'local-only'] } - this is the build-time supported set; the active policy is in policy.permission.

Conditional tags

export const CONDITIONAL_SERVE_FEATURES: ReadonlyMap<
  ServeFeature,
  (toggles: AdvertiseFeatureToggles) => boolean
> = new Map([
  ['require_auth', (t) => t.requireAuth === true],
  ['mcp_workspace_pool', (t) => t.mcpPoolActive === true],
  ['mcp_pool_restart', (t) => t.mcpPoolActive === true],
  ['allow_origin', (t) => t.allowOriginActive === true],
  [
    'prompt_absolute_deadline',
    (t) => typeof t.promptDeadlineMs === 'number' && t.promptDeadlineMs > 0,
  ],
  [
    'writer_idle_timeout',
    (t) =>
      typeof t.writerIdleTimeoutMs === 'number' && t.writerIdleTimeoutMs > 0,
  ],
  ['workspace_settings', (t) => t.persistSettingAvailable === true],
  ['session_shell_command', (t) => t.sessionShellCommandEnabled === true],
  ['rate_limit', (t) => t.rateLimit === true],
  ['workspace_reload', (t) => t.reloadAvailable === true],
]);

The Map stores membership and predicate together. Adding a new conditional tag requires two coordinated changes:

1. Register the tag and its since version in SERVE_CAPABILITY_REGISTRY.
2. Add its predicate to CONDITIONAL_SERVE_FEATURES.

Baseline tags are not present in the Map and are advertised unconditionally. This is intentionally represented by absence rather than by a separate Set.

67 tags (v1, grouped by domain)

Foundation: health, capabilities.

Sessions: session_create, session_scope_override, session_load, session_resume, unstable_session_resume, session_list, session_prompt, session_cancel, session_events, session_set_model, session_close, session_metadata, session_context, session_context_usage, session_supported_commands, session_tasks, session_stats, session_lsp, session_approval_mode_control, session_recap, session_btw, session_shell_command (conditional), session_language, session_rewind, session_hooks, session_branch.

Streaming: slow_client_warning, typed_event_schema.

Identity and heartbeat: client_identity, client_heartbeat.

Permissions: session_permission_vote, permission_vote, permission_mediation (modes: ['first-responder', 'designated', 'consensus', 'local-only']).

Workspace read-only snapshots: workspace_mcp, workspace_skills, workspace_providers, workspace_env, workspace_preflight, workspace_hooks, workspace_extensions.

Workspace mutation (Wave 4+): workspace_memory, workspace_agents, workspace_agent_generate, workspace_tool_toggle, workspace_settings (conditional), workspace_init, workspace_mcp_restart, workspace_mcp_manage, workspace_file_read, workspace_file_bytes, workspace_file_write, workspace_reload (conditional).

MCP guardrails: mcp_guardrails (modes: ['warn', 'enforce']), mcp_guardrail_events, mcp_server_runtime_mutation, mcp_workspace_pool (conditional), mcp_pool_restart (conditional).

Prompt control: prompt_absolute_deadline (conditional), writer_idle_timeout (conditional), non_blocking_prompt.

Auth: auth_provider_install, auth_device_flow, require_auth (conditional), allow_origin (conditional).

Rate limiting: rate_limit (conditional).

Bold tags have modes or are conditional.

Flow

Daemon side: assemble envelope

Client side: feature preflight

State and lifecycle

• CAPABILITIES_SCHEMA_VERSION is the wire envelope shape version, currently 1. Bump it only for an envelope break.
• SERVE_PROTOCOL_VERSION = 'v1' is the protocol-feature version. Adding features inside v1 is additive; old clients do not see new behavior unless they preflight the new tag. Removing a feature is a v2 break.
• EVENT_SCHEMA_VERSION = 1 is the SSE frame v field (see 09-event-schema.md). It is an independent version axis; bumping event schema does not imply bumping protocol version, and vice versa.
• session_resume is the stable daemon capability for POST /session/:id/resume. unstable_session_resume remains advertised as a deprecated alias because the underlying ACP method is still named connection.unstable_resumeSession; new clients should feature-detect session_resume.

Dependencies

• Read by packages/cli/src/serve/server.ts when building /capabilities responses.
• Toggle input comes from runQwenServe / createServeApp: { requireAuth, mcpPoolActive, allowOriginActive, promptDeadlineMs, writerIdleTimeoutMs, persistSettingAvailable, sessionShellCommandEnabled, rateLimit, reloadAvailable }.
• The active permission policy in the envelope comes from BridgeOptions.permissionPolicy, which itself reads settings.json policy.permissionStrategy.

Configuration

Caveats and known limits

• --require-auth hides preflight. With --require-auth, all routes, including /capabilities, require bearer auth. An unauthenticated client cannot preflight caps.features.require_auth; the 401 response body is the discovery surface. The require_auth tag is an authenticated confirmation for hardened-deployment audit UIs.
• Tag presence means behavior exists. If a future contributor adds behavior under an existing tag without bumping since, clients that preflighted the old tag can silently receive new behavior. The convention is: new behavior gets a new tag.
• unstable_* tags can change shape between versions without a protocol bump. Pin an SDK version when depending on them.
• The route catalog lives in ../qwen-serve-protocol.md; this page intentionally does not duplicate it.

References

• packages/cli/src/serve/capabilities.ts
• packages/cli/src/serve/types.ts (ServeOptions, CapabilitiesEnvelope)
• packages/cli/src/serve/server.ts (envelope assembly)
• packages/acp-bridge/src/eventBus.ts (EVENT_SCHEMA_VERSION)
• Wire reference: ../qwen-serve-protocol.md
• Auth and deployment guardrails: 12-auth-security.md