Expressing systems capabilities for knowledge coordination

Mediated coordination of multiple intelligent agents requires public knowledge of what each agent is capable of offering to other agents. This knowledge must be accessible by the mediating agent, that can be as simple as a matchmaker or as sophisticated as a complete broker. Among many problems related to advertising and managing capabilities of multiple agents, we consider in this article the one we regard as the most fundamental problem: what is a "capability"?. We show that the answer is not unique. Clearly, it must precede any development of architectures, strategies, procedures and policies to manage capabilities for knowledge coordination.