| name | team |
| description | Team allocation and dependency-aware parallelization โ decide when to use teams, select roles, dispatch parallel work safely. Invoke for L-size tasks to evaluate whether team dispatch reduces wall-clock time. |
Team Allocation
Coexistence with Superpowers
This skill is autopilot's standalone methodology for team allocation decisions โ when to organize parallel work, which roles to assign, how to analyze dependencies. If the superpowers plugin is installed, superpowers:dispatching-parallel-agents is the dispatch mechanism (the verb), but role/dependency planning (the noun) is still this skill's domain.
Differences worth knowing:
- autopilot:team = allocation decision tree (when to็ต้, role ้ธๆ, ไพ่ณดๅๆ, team size rules, shutdown flow).
- superpowers:dispatching-parallel-agents = the technical dispatch mechanism โ issuing parallel agent calls with structured reporting.
- For the dispatch mechanism preference (after allocation decided), see
.claude/dispatch-config.md's ## Parallel Dispatch chain. For allocation methodology, this skill is the primary entry point regardless.
Project Config (auto-injected)
!cat .claude/team-config.md 2>/dev/null || echo "_No config โ using generic role templates below._"
When Teams Are Needed
| Size | Team | Action |
|---|
| S | No | Do directly |
| L | Evaluate | Use decision tree below |
Decision Tree
L-size task
โโโ All phases sequentially dependent? โ No team, solo by phase
โโโ 2+ independent parallel work blocks? โ Build team
โ โโโ Backend + Frontend changes โ backend-dev + frontend-dev
โ โโโ Audit then implement โ auditor + implementer
โ โโโ Multiple modules each need changes โ per-module agents
โ โโโ Research + implement can overlap โ researcher + implementer
โโโ Unsure? โ Solo Phase 0 design first, then decide
Role Templates
| Role | subagent_type | Use Case |
|---|
| backend-dev | general-purpose | Backend/server changes |
| frontend-dev | general-purpose | Frontend/client changes |
| auditor | Explore | Code audit, investigation |
| researcher | Explore | Architecture research, comparison |
| tester | general-purpose | E2E/stress testing |
Team Size Rules
- Minimize: 2 agents sufficient? Do not use 3.
- Cap at 3: Coordination cost exceeds parallelism benefit beyond 3.
- Leader = self: Main agent coordinates. Do not spawn a separate leader.
cap-3 governs COORDINATION, i.e. collaborative teams (agents that message / share state) โ NOT
independent read-only fan-out. Spawning N agents that each produce findings/reports over disjoint
inputs and never write back to shared files (e.g. audit Phase 2 per-segment exploration, parallel
review dimensions, multi-source research) is not a team and is not capped at 3 โ there's no
inter-agent coordination to pay for. Bound such fan-out by the practical concurrency sweet spot (~8)
and assert collected == dispatched before synthesizing, so a dropped unit fails loudly instead of
silently thinning the result.
Dependency Analysis
Details on dependency graph construction, file overlap checks, and common parallelization patterns: references/team-tactics.md
Execution
Create Team
TeamCreate:
team_name: "<project-name>"
description: "<one-line description>"
Create Tasks
One task per parallelizable work unit:
TaskCreate:
subject: "Phase N: <specific work>"
description: "Full description including:
- Files to modify
- Completion criteria
- Verification method"
activeForm: "Working on Phase N"
Spawn Teammates
Agent tool:
subagent_type: "<from role templates>"
team_name: "<project-name>"
name: "<role-name>"
prompt: |
You are <role>, responsible for <specific work>...
### SKILLS โ Invoke these via the Skill tool before touching code
- /<plugin>:<skill> # e.g. /autopilot:debug if this teammate will touch
# failure-prone code
- /<project>:<skill> # project skill for the affected module, if any
- none โ explain why # explicit fallback when no skill applies
<rest of role-specific instructions>
Paraphrasing a skill's methodology inside <role-specific instructions> is NOT
a substitute for the SKILLS block. The subagent must call the Skill tool so the
skill's full checklist / red-line rules / rationalization table load into its
session context โ same discipline dev-flow L-1.6 enforces on the main session,
applied to subagent dispatch. For the full Seven-Element template (including
SKILLS) when dispatching L-size project work, see
skills/ceo-agent/references/task-prompt-templates.md.
Coordination Principles
- Task-driven: Each teammate picks work from TaskList
- Concise messaging: SendMessage only when coordination needed
- Leader does not implement: Leader coordinates + reviews, does not take tasks
- Report on completion: Teammate does TaskUpdate + SendMessage when done
- Timely shutdown: All tasks complete -> run shutdown flow
Shutdown
All tasks completed
โโโ 1. Confirm all TaskUpdate status=completed
โโโ 2. Leader reviews each teammate's output
โโโ 3. TeamDelete team_name="<project-name>"
โโโ 4. Report final results to user
Anti-patterns
| Wrong | Correct |
|---|
| "I'll do it faster solo" | Evaluate objectively โ 2 modules = worth parallelizing |
| Team commit task says "commit changes" | Must include quality-pipeline |
| Dispatch without file overlap check | Always check overlap first |
Dispatch teammate prompt without ### SKILLS section | Subagent must invoke required skills via the Skill tool before touching code; paraphrasing the methodology in the prompt loses fidelity (same rule as ceo-agent step 9 and dev-flow L-1.6) |
See Also