Methods and systems for enabling human-machine collaborations includes a generalizable framework that supports dynamic adaptation and reuse of robotic capability representations and human-machine collaborative behaviors. Specifically, a computer-implemented method of enabling user-robot collaboration includes providing a composition of user interaction capabilities and a robot capability that models a functionality of a robot for performing a type of task action based on a set of parameters; specializing the robot capability with an information kernel that encapsulates the set of parameters; providing a robot capability element based on the robot capability and the information kernel and interaction capability elements based on the user interaction capabilities; connecting the robot capability element to the interaction capability elements; providing, based on the interaction capability elements, user interfaces to acquire user input associated with the set of parameters; and controlling, based on the user input and the information kernel, the functionality of the robot via the robot capability element to perform a task action of the type of task action.