ADL

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metadata ​

Identifying information about the agent. Three required fields, three optional.

yaml
metadata:
  name: customer-support # required
  description: ... # required
  version: "1.0.0" # required
  author: # optional
    name: Acme Corp
    email: [email protected]
    url: https://acme.example
  license: Apache-2.0 # optional
  tags: # optional
    - support
    - customer-service

metadata.name ​

  • Type: string
  • Required: yes
  • Pattern: ^[a-z0-9-]+$ - lowercase letters, digits, and hyphens only.

The agent's canonical identifier. Generators turn this into package and service names, so the kebab-case constraint is enforced for portability across languages and runtimes.

metadata.description ​

  • Type: string
  • Required: yes

A one-line summary of the agent. Surfaces in registries, README files, and generated documentation. Keep it short and behaviour-focused ("Handles customer inquiries", not "An agent built with ADL").

metadata.version ​

  • Type: string
  • Required: yes
  • Pattern: ^\d+\.\d+\.\d+$ - semantic versioning MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH.

The agent's own version, independent of the schema version. Bump it when you change the agent's behaviour. Pre-release suffixes (-rc.1) are not currently accepted by the pattern.

metadata.author ​

  • Type: object
  • Required: no
  • Required sub-fields when present: name
yaml
metadata:
  author:
    name: Acme Corp # required when author is present
    email: [email protected] # optional, format: email
    url: https://acme.example # optional, format: uri

Attribution and contact for whoever publishes the agent. Surfaces in registries and the generated project's documentation. additionalProperties are not allowed - only name, email, and url.

metadata.license ​

  • Type: string
  • Required: no
  • Allowed values: SPDX identifiers, or Proprietary.
yaml
metadata:
  license: Apache-2.0

The licence the agent is distributed under. Mirrors the enum used by spec.skills[].license, so the same accepted set applies at both levels. See License identifiers for the full table.

SPDX expressions like MIT OR Apache-2.0 are not currently accepted - a single identifier only.

metadata.tags ​

  • Type: string[]
  • Required: no

Discoverability tags for the agent (e.g. calendar, automation). Consumers may merge these with tool- and skill-level tags when indexing or building a search experience over a registry.

yaml
metadata:
  tags:
    - support
    - customer-service