has

Declare fundamental capabilities that change what a machine is, not just what it does. Currently, the only supported capability is agency, which transforms a machine into a governed agent with persistent identity, conversation, memory, and evolution.

has appears before all other sections because it fundamentally alters the machine’s nature. A machine with has agency is not the same kind of thing as a machine without it; it gains an identity (agt_ prefixed ID), a cognitive layer, and two modes of operation.

When to use

Use has agency when the machine should:

Maintain a persistent identity across invocations
Be addressable directly (talked to via chat, A2A, or signals)
Have access to the full Koda cognitive layer (conversation, memory, awareness, autonomy, evolution, coordination)
Explain its decisions and improve over time

Omit has entirely for machines that are pure functions, pipelines, or utilities. Most machines do not need agency. A machine that classifies text or fetches data does not need persistent identity or conversational ability.

Syntax

has agency

That is the complete syntax. has takes a bare capability name. No colon, no value, no block. The parser accepts has <identifier> and validates against known capabilities. In the current language version, only agency is valid.

Two modes of operation

A machine with has agency operates in two modes:

Mode	When	Tools available
Working	Executing its defined steps (default)	Only domain tools declared in `implements`
Conversational	Addressed directly (chat, A2A, signal)	Koda platform tools alongside domain tools

In working mode, the agent runs its steps normally. In conversational mode, the runtime provides additional Koda platform tools so the agent can reason about itself, its history, and its environment.

Agent instances

Individual agent instances are declared in krate.toml, not in the .mashin file. Each instance gets its own identity and configuration:

[[entities]]
name = "support_agent_1"
config = { inbox = "support@example.com" }

The .mashin file defines the agent’s behavior; krate.toml defines its instances.

Examples

Agent with goal and governance

machine email_assistant "Email Assistant"

has agency

achieves
  goal "Stay on top of email for the user"
    succeeds when "all emails triaged within 30 minutes"
    never "send a reply without user approval"

accepts
  inbox as text, is required

responds with
  triaged as boolean

implements
  ask triage, using: "anthropic:claude-sonnet-4-6"
    with role "You are an email triage assistant"
    with task "Triage this email and decide the action: ${input.inbox}"
    tools
      read_email: "@mashin/actions/email/read"
      create_task: "@mashin/actions/planner/create"
    returns
      triaged as boolean

ensures
  permissions
    allowed to
      llm_call, http
    requires approval for
      send_email

Minimal agent

machine greeter_agent "Greeter"

has agency

accepts
  name as text, is required

responds with
  greeting as text

implements
  compute greet
    {greeting: "Hello, " + input.name + "! I'm your personal assistant."}

Overriding Koda cognitive machines

You can override any @system/koda/* machine by writing a machine with a matching name in your project. For example, if your project namespace is @alan, then @alan/kardia overrides @system/koda/kardia.

Canonical ordering

has is section 0, appearing first because it changes the machine’s fundamental nature:

machine name
  has agency          <-- here (section 0)
  uses ...
  achieves ...
  accepts ...
  responds with ...
  defines ...
  implements ...

Governance

has agency does not bypass governance. An agent is governed by the same ensures rules as any other machine. The difference is that agents gain additional capabilities (conversation, memory, evolution) that are themselves governed through the Koda cognitive layer. Every cognitive operation performed by an agent is an inspectable @system/koda/* machine call (the Smalltalk property).

Translations

Language	Keyword
English	has
Spanish	tiene
French	a
German	hat
Japanese	持つ
Chinese	具有
Korean	가진다

has

has