Core Concepts
Agent as a Business is the commercial and operational layer around an AI capability. It packages the capability once, publishes it across human and agent channels, meters usage, and connects reliability with revenue and margin.
Agent Business
Section titled “Agent Business”An Agent Business is the enduring identity of a sellable capability. Its name and history continue across many Capability Releases, Offers, channels, and operational events.
Capability
Section titled “Capability”The Capability defines what the business does and the contract it exposes. It has one of two product types:
- A Single Agent is one reasoning unit with instructions, model configuration, tools, and input/output contracts.
- A Workflow DAG composes reusable Single Agent Releases, MCP tools, conditions, structured transforms, inputs, and outputs through directed acyclic edges.
Prompt text is Single Agent configuration. MCP is a Tool interface. Dify and other engines can provide execution, but they are not peer top-level product entities.
Tool and planned Skill
Section titled “Tool and planned Skill”A Tool is one executable operation available today. Its versioned identity, input Schema, execution binding, risk metadata, and optional Workspace Connection make the operation safe to select in a Single Agent or Workflow. The Workflow Tool Catalog includes built-in, connected, and MCP operations; it does not turn an entire integration into a new Capability type.
A Skill is a planned higher-level reusable behavior package that could combine instructions, Tools, policies, and examples. Skill management is not currently available: there is no public Skill Library, management interface, or Skill node. Template helpers and internal automation skills are not product Skills.
Surface
Section titled “Surface”A Surface is how a buyer or client reaches the capability: hosted Web, runtime API, OpenAPI, MCP, or a downloadable package. Human and machine surfaces can share one Agent Business and release history.
Capability Release
Section titled “Capability Release”A Capability Release is an immutable executable and trust contract. It binds a specific capability version, schemas, runtime policy, and referenced commercial identities. Changed behavior should produce a new release instead of mutating a live one.
Offer and settlement policy
Section titled “Offer and settlement policy”An Offer records buyer-facing price, quota, payment, and refund terms. A Settlement Policy records how value is allocated between the creator, platform, and channel. Both remain explicit so historical transactions can be explained later.
Channel and publication
Section titled “Channel and publication”A Channel is a managed destination such as hosted Web, direct API, MCP, or an external registry. A Publication records the relationship between an Agent Business, a channel, and the release and commercial terms projected there.
Operations
Section titled “Operations”Operations covers reliability, usage, revenue, cost, margin, refunds, and audit evidence. Operational views report verified events and make unavailable or empty data explicit.
Runtime and consumers
Section titled “Runtime and consumers”The runtime is the business-scoped execution surface used by generated frontends, direct API clients, and agents. It enforces tokens, origin policy, quotas, payment gates, provider execution, and telemetry without exposing secrets to the client.
The downstream consumer may be a human end user, an API client, or another agent. Consumer identity, quota, and credits remain scoped to the Agent Business and separate from creator login and billing.
API compatibility
Section titled “API compatibility”Some runtime paths, schemas, headers, and resource identifiers retain legacy wire names for compatibility. Treat those values as protocol identifiers. In the console and product documentation, the canonical product entity is Agent Business.
Continue
Section titled “Continue”- Choose a business mode.
- Learn how to build a Workflow.
- Follow the operating lifecycle.
- Learn how to read operations and revenue.