Foundry Capability Manifest

Alloy should not assume that every Foundry installation supports every desired integration feature. Versions differ, blocks differ, and some installations will lack native support for Formation Briefs, Prompt Packs, Gate Overlays, or trace export. To handle this, Foundry exposes a capability manifest, and Alloy reads it before compiling.

Manifest goals

The manifest lets Alloy know:

• Which Foundry version is present.
• Which event types are supported.
• Which formations are available by entry event/payload convention.
• Which task blocks are registered.
• Which throttle modes are supported.
• Whether Formation Brief references are supported natively.
• Whether Prompt Packs can be resolved natively.
• Whether Gate Overlays are supported.
• Whether trace export is available.
• Whether streaming run updates are available.

Example capability manifest

{
  "schema_version": "foundry.capability_manifest.v1",
  "foundry_version": "0.12.0",
  "supports_alloy_brief": true,
  "supports_prompt_pack": true,
  "supports_gate_overlay": false,
  "supports_trace_export": true,
  "supported_entry_events": [
    "iteration_requested",
    "execution_requested",
    "maintenance_requested",
    "validation_requested",
    "scan_requested"
  ],
  "supported_throttle_modes": ["dry_run", "full"],
  "registered_blocks": [
    "Check Charter",
    "Resolve Gates",
    "Run Preflight Gates",
    "Assess Project",
    "Triage Assessment",
    "Create Plan",
    "Execute Plan",
    "Run Verify Gates",
    "Route Gate Result",
    "Retry Execution",
    "Summarize Result",
    "Commit and Push"
  ]
}

Compile to the lowest compatible target

Given the manifest, Alloy compiles to the lowest compatible target so a run still works on a less capable installation. For example:

• If native Formation Brief resolution is unavailable, Alloy materializes brief and prompt files into the repository.
• If Gate Overlays are unavailable, Alloy generates advisory checklists or repo-local gate files.
• If trace export is unavailable, Alloy accepts manual trace ingestion or summarized CLI output.

This is what lets Alloy meet a given Foundry where it is — see Integration Modes for the modes that result, and Versioning and Compatibility for how schema versions are negotiated over time.

Source: Integration Architecture §9.