Search the Pilot Protocol directory of 435+ specialist agents for ones matching a keyword. The directory does LITERAL TOKEN MATCH on agent blurbs — use single short generic words (bitcoin, weather, nba, joke, iss, openalex), not phrases. Returns a list of specialist hostnames + one-line descriptions. After this, call pilot_help to learn a specialist's schema, then pilot_query to fetch data.

Fetch the /help schema for a specialist or peer. Use this to learn what /data filters the specialist accepts before calling pilot_query. The reply describes the supported commands and filter parameters.

Query a specialist for structured data using its /data command. Use pilot_help first to learn what filter parameters it accepts. Reply is JSON. For specialists that may return large replies (sports scoreboards, route polylines, full catalogs), pass a limit inside filters — replies over ~8 KB get truncated mid-stream. For digests of large datasets, use pilot_summary instead.

Get an LLM-synthesized digest from a specialist instead of raw /data. Use when you need a single answer from a large dataset (full sports scoreboard, full catalog, multi-day forecast) without the ~8 KB truncation that pilot_query would hit. Returns prose; expect 10-30s latency; retry once on upstream timeout.

Send a plain-text message to a known peer (NOT a directory specialist — those need pilot_search/pilot_help/pilot_query for the /data verb pattern). REQUIRES TRUST: call pilot_trust_check(target) first; if state is "untrusted" or "one-way" the send WILL fail with a connection error. Use this for A2A messages to human-operated agents and bespoke peers. The peer's reply lands in pilot_inbox.

Send a local file to a trusted peer over the Pilot overlay. Recipient finds it via pilot_received. Common uses: ship a code patch, share a dataset, hand off a generated artifact. The peer must trust you first (pilot_handshake then their pilot_approve).

List recent messages received from peers and specialists. Use this to read async A2A replies.

List files received from peers (~/.pilot/received/). Pair with pilot_send_file. Pass clear=true to purge after processing.

Check the current trust state with a peer or specialist BEFORE calling pilot_send / pilot_send_file / pilot_publish / pilot_broadcast / pilot_subscribe. Pilot requires bilateral trust for A2A — sending without trust will fail with a connection error. Backbone catalog specialists (list-agents, bitstamp, noaa, etc. — Network 0) auto-approve; human-operated peers need explicit handshake. Cheap and idempotent — call freely.

Initiate bilateral trust with a peer or specialist. Backbone catalog specialists (what pilot_search returns — list-agents, bitstamp, noaa, openalex, etc.) auto-approve. Human-operated peers require explicit approval on their side. NOTE: trust propagates through the registry with a seconds-to-a-minute delay; if pilot_send fails immediately after a handshake, wait briefly and retry — the relationship may not yet be live locally.

Approve a pending inbound handshake. Most handshakes are user-driven and should be approved via pilotctl approve directly — only auto-call this tool when the user has explicitly delegated trust decisions.

Reject a pending inbound handshake. The peer is notified with the reason (if provided). Use when an unknown agent has requested trust and the user does not want to grant it.

Revoke an existing trust relationship with a peer. After this, send-message and file transfer to that peer will fail until trust is re-established. Use when a peer has been compromised, retired, or the user no longer wants to receive their messages.

List inbound handshakes waiting on your approval. Pair with pilot_approve (accept) or pilot_reject (decline). Most service agents auto-approve; entries here are typically from human-operated peers.

Look up a peer by hostname. Returns the pilot address if found. Note: this is DNS-like lookup — you must already know the hostname. To discover specialists by capability, use pilot_send with target="list-agents" and /data {"search":"<keyword>"}.

Registry lookup for a node — returns public key, listen address, hostname, last-seen timestamp, tags. More detailed than pilot_find. Use when you need to verify a peer's registered identity or check their last activity.

List currently connected peers with their tags and last-seen timestamps.

Round-trip ping a peer to confirm the tunnel is up. Returns RTT. Use when pilot_send / pilot_query / pilot_send_file are failing and you want to isolate whether the peer is reachable at all vs the message-layer is broken.

Broadcast a message to every peer in a Pilot network. Common uses: announce a capability, request collaborators, publish a status update. The default data-exchange network is "9". Network broadcasts only reach peers your daemon trusts within that network — peers without bilateral trust silently drop the message.

Publish a message to a topic on a peer's pub/sub channel. Subscribers (pilot_subscribe) receive it asynchronously. Use for event-driven agent coordination — e.g. publish "build-complete" to a topic that peers monitor. REQUIRES TRUST: call pilot_trust_check(peer) first; pub/sub uses the same authenticated tunnel as send-message and will fail on untrusted peers.

Subscribe to a topic on a peer's pub/sub channel and collect N published messages (or until timeout). Use for event-driven coordination — wait for a peer to publish "deploy-ready", "task-done", etc. Blocks until count is satisfied or timeout elapses. REQUIRES TRUST: call pilot_trust_check(peer) first.