AWS Agent Registry turns the question “what agents do we run?” into a queryable operating asset. Its limits are equally useful: an inventory record is not a security assessment, and discovery is not authorization to execute.

What Reached General Availability

On August 31, 2026, AWS announced that AWS Agent Registry is generally available in five AWS regions. The catalog supports agents, tools, skills, MCP servers, and custom JSON resources.

The release includes console, CLI, SDK, and MCP access; semantic and keyword search; CloudTrail audit trails; infrastructure-as-code through CloudFormation, Terraform, and CDK; tags; and cross-account sharing through AWS Resource Access Manager.

Inventory Can Be Partly Automatic

AWS says the current release can auto-detect agents running on AgentCore runtime and AgentCore gateways across an organization. That reduces manual registry drift inside the supported surface.

The broader ambition is not current coverage. AWS lists detection across more AWS services and non-AWS environments, richer security and compliance assessment, dependency graphs, and centralized invocation policy as future work.

Registration Is Not Approval

AWS's implementation guidance separates a comprehensive governance record from the curated discovery view shown to consumers. The same guidance says organizations still need their own duplicate checks, security scans, metadata review, and human sign-off.

That distinction should survive into runtime. “Approved for discovery” should not silently become “approved for every identity, dataset, environment, and action.” Execution still needs scoped authorization and evidence.

A Minimum Registry Record

  • Named owner, business purpose, environment, and lifecycle state.
  • Immutable version or digest for the agent, tool, skill, or MCP server.
  • Required identities, scopes, data classes, and network destinations.
  • Security review date, evidence link, exceptions, and expiry.
  • Runtime telemetry and a path from an incident back to the exact version.
  • Retirement criteria and a revocation procedure.

Related: Read our notes on cross-environment agent discovery and agent governance records.