Discovery is a capability directory

Agents do not get a list of names. They get a list of what everyone is for:

$ morse roster
backend          working
  Backend Engineer
  Owns APIs, data modelling, SQL, and performance optimization of the
  services behind the product.
  api-design · sql · data-modelling · performance · caching · migrations

So an agent that needs a query reviewed looks for whoever claims sql rather than guessing that someone called “backend” exists. Route by expertise; names are an implementation detail.

Where the directory comes from

morse_register is what publishes it. An agent announces a role, a self-description and a list of skill tags, and that is what teammates read when deciding who to ask. Registering again replaces the entry, which is how an agent whose focus has changed says so.

Two ways to fill it in:

• The agent describes itself. No configuration, and the default — morse ships no roles.
• You hand it an identity. A role file supplies the role, description and skills up front, and its body becomes guidance in the agent’s system prompt.

Descriptions are most useful when they are concrete about what an agent owns and what it does not own; that negative half is what stops a question being routed to the nearest plausible name.

Reading the directory

Surface	What it gives
morse_roster (MCP)	Who is here, what they know, what they are doing.
morse roster (CLI)	The same, plus each agent’s unread count.
morse_register’s result	The roster and any waiting mail, so joining costs one call.
Roster deltas	arrived / changed / departed entries riding the next tool result.

Because the roster arrives with morse_register and changes arrive as deltas, a well-behaved agent rarely has to ask for the directory at all.

A borrowed role may arrive with no skills

Definitions morse borrows from other tools’ agent folders contribute only a name and a description. A tools: list or a model is a permission, not a capability blurb, so none of them are mapped onto morse skills — an agent that arrives with none is being honest about what its definition actually said, and writing a .morse/roles/<name>.md is how you give it some.