Capabilities

Built-in tools

Talos ships with built-in tools for common coding-agent work. The default prompt asks models to prefer built-in tools and use shell commands as a fallback when a native tool cannot cover the task.

Files and directories

• read
• write
• edit
• delete
• ls
• tree
• glob

Search and inspection

• grep
• diff
• stat

Code intelligence

• find_symbol
• find_references
• list_symbols
• list_imports

Git

• git_status
• git_diff
• git_log
• git_show
• git_branch_list
• git_add
• git_commit
• git_push
• git_pull
• git_checkout

Network

• http_request — SSRF-protected, permission-gated.
• web_search — DuckDuckGo, Tavily, SearXNG, and Wikipedia.

Image reading

• read_image — model-invoked image read for vision-capable models; validates PNG/JPEG/GIF/WebP, exact-path authorization, one-shot provider continuation (ADR-051).

Shell escape hatch

• bash — Unix, via sh -c.
• powershell — Windows, via powershell.exe -NoProfile -NonInteractive.

Slash commands

Type / in the TUI to open the command menu. Continue typing to filter commands, use Up / Down to move the selection, and press Enter or Tab to complete it. Backspace edits the filter and Esc closes the menu without clearing the composer. Use /help to list the commands available in the current session. The Skill commands are also available in inline mode.

Runtime Skills

Talos discovers SKILL.md files at session startup and injects Level 0 metadata (skill name, description, and triggers) into the system prompt before the first model turn.

Skill search paths, in priority order:

1. .talos/skills/ in the active workspace
2. ~/.talos/skills/
3. parent .talos/skills/ directories up to the Git root

Use /skills in the TUI or inline mode to list runtime-discovered skills. Use /skills activate <name> to explicitly load one Skill body into provider context for subsequent turns. After a Skill is active, use /skills reference <relative-path> to load a bounded reference file from that Skill directory.

MCP tools

Configure local stdio MCP servers in ~/.talos/config.toml:

[[mcp.servers]]
name = "filesystem"
transport = "stdio"
command = "/path/to/mcp-server"
args = ["/path/to/workspace"]
env = {}

Talos starts configured servers and discovers their tools before the first model turn in TUI, print, inline, interactive, and RPC modes. Tool names use the mcp:<server>:<tool> form. Read-only annotations are honored; other MCP tools use the normal approval path and are denied when interactive approval is unavailable. Startup failures are reported without aborting the session, and each MCP request has a bounded timeout. Use /plugins in the TUI to inspect the startup connection snapshot and observed tool provenance.

Embedding Talos in Rust

Rust applications can depend on the talos-runtime crate to embed the core agent loop without linking Talos CLI or TUI crates. The initial pre-1.0 facade exposes RuntimeBuilder and RuntimeHandle for provider / tool injection, typed event streaming, interruption, shutdown, and explicit request previews.

Registered tools are permission-wrapped by default. In headless embedding, unresolved Ask decisions are denied unless the embedder supplies narrower allow-list rules.

What is not in this page

The public site only documents shipped behavior. Items that are planned or research — including broader dotagents compatibility beyond shared Skills discovery, web control expansion beyond the read-only dashboard, remote plugin distribution, automatic plugin discovery, write-capable plugins, and remote or P2P session control — live on the Roadmap.