Introducing ORCA: executable skills and capabilities for AI agent workflows

The problem Most agent frameworks are great at orchestrating LLM calls. But when it comes to deterministic operations — parsing documents, validating schemas, deduplicating records — you end up writing custom glue code every time. I wanted a framework where agents could actually execute , not just plan. What is ORCA? ORCA (Open Runtime for Capable Agents) is an open-source Python framework that treats agent actions as capabilities — declarative YAML contracts that can be wired to any backend: pure Python, OpenAI, or external APIs. You compose capabilities into skills (multi-step workflows defined as DAGs), and the runtime handles scheduling, policy enforcement, and state tracking. What's included 122 capabilities with deterministic Python baselines — no API keys needed 36 ready-to-use skills composed from those capabilities DAG scheduler with policy gates and cognitive state tracking Scaffold wizard to build new skills in minutes Auto-bindings for OpenAI and PythonCall out of the box A