Setting the file. One moment.
Subchapter 12.24
machine-capabilities.mdMarkdown2 KBView on GitHub
Enable Ralph to skip issues requiring capabilities the current machine lacks.
When running Squad across multiple machines (laptops, DevBoxes, GPU servers, Kubernetes nodes), each machine has different tooling. The capability system lets you declare what each machine can do, and Ralph automatically routes work accordingly.
Create ~/.squad/machine-capabilities.json (user-wide) or .squad/machine-capabilities.json (project-local):
{
"machine": "MY-LAPTOP",
"capabilities": ["browser", "personal-gh", "onedrive"],
"missing": ["gpu", "docker", "azure-speech"],
"lastUpdated": "2026-03-22T00:00:00Z"
}Add needs:* labels to issues that require specific capabilities:
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
needs:browser | Requires Playwright / browser automation |
needs:gpu | Requires NVIDIA GPU |
needs:personal-gh | Requires personal GitHub account |
needs:emu-gh | Requires Enterprise Managed User account |
needs:azure-cli | Requires authenticated Azure CLI |
needs:docker | Requires Docker daemon |
needs:onedrive | Requires OneDrive sync |
needs:teams-mcp | Requires Teams MCP tools |
Custom capabilities are supported — any needs:X label works if X is in the machine’s capabilities array.
squad watch --interval 5Ralph will log skipped issues:
⏭️ Skipping #42 "Train ML model" — missing: gpu
✓ Triaged #43 "Fix CSS layout" → Picard (routing-rule)machine-capabilities.json at startupneeds:* labelsneeds:* labels are always processed (opt-in system)On Kubernetes, machine capabilities map to node labels:
# Node labels (set by capability DaemonSet or manually)
node.squad.dev/gpu: "true"
node.squad.dev/browser: "true"
# Pod spec uses nodeSelector
spec:
nodeSelector:
node.squad.dev/gpu: "true"A DaemonSet can run capability discovery on each node and maintain labels automatically. See the squad-on-aks (opens in a new tab) project for a complete Kubernetes deployment example.