agent-teams

name

agent-teams

description

Set up and orchestrate Claude Code agent teams - multiple Claude Code instances working together with shared tasks, inter-agent messaging, and centralized management. Use when the user wants to (1) create or start an agent team for parallel work, (2) configure agent team settings like display mode or teammate mode or permissions, (3) coordinate teammates for code review or debugging or feature development or research, (4) understand when to use agent teams vs subagents, (5) troubleshoot agent team issues. Triggers include mentions of "agent team", "team of agents", "parallel agents", "teammates", "split pane", "tmux teammates", "delegate mode", "spawn teammates", or wanting multiple Claude instances collaborating.

Agent Teams

Coordinate multiple Claude Code instances working together. One session acts as team lead, spawning and coordinating teammates that work independently in their own context windows and communicate directly with each other.

Quick Setup

1. Enable the feature (experimental, disabled by default)

Add to settings.json:

{
  "env": {
    "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "1"
  }
}

Or set the environment variable directly:

export CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1

2. Start a team

Tell Claude to create an agent team with a natural language prompt describing the task and team structure:

Create an agent team to review PR #142. Spawn three reviewers:
- One focused on security implications
- One checking performance impact
- One validating test coverage

Claude creates the team, spawns teammates, coordinates work, and synthesizes results.

When to Use Agent Teams vs Subagents

Criteria	Use Subagents	Use Agent Teams
Workers need to talk to each other	No	Yes
Task is focused, result-only matters	Yes	No
Complex work requiring discussion	No	Yes
Token budget is tight	Yes (lower cost)	No (higher cost)
Workers need shared task list	No	Yes

Best use cases for agent teams:

• Research and review: parallel investigation of different aspects
• New modules/features: each teammate owns a separate piece
• Debugging competing hypotheses: test theories in parallel
• Cross-layer coordination: frontend, backend, and tests each owned by different teammates

Display Modes

Two modes available. Set in settings.json or via CLI flag.

In-process (default fallback): All teammates in your main terminal.

• Shift+Up/Down to select a teammate
• Enter to view a teammate's session, Escape to interrupt
• Ctrl+T to toggle task list

Split panes: Each teammate gets its own pane (requires tmux or iTerm2).

• Click into a pane to interact directly

{ "teammateMode": "in-process" }

Or per-session:

claude --teammate-mode in-process

The default "auto" uses split panes if already in tmux, otherwise in-process.

For split pane prerequisites and troubleshooting, see references/configuration.md.

Key Controls

Specify teammates and models

Create a team with 4 teammates to refactor these modules in parallel.
Use Sonnet for each teammate.

Require plan approval

Spawn an architect teammate to refactor the authentication module.
Require plan approval before they make any changes.

The lead reviews and approves/rejects plans autonomously. Influence with criteria: "only approve plans that include test coverage."

Delegate mode

Press Shift+Tab to cycle into delegate mode. Restricts the lead to coordination-only (no code changes), forcing it to delegate all implementation to teammates.

Talk to teammates directly

Each teammate is a full Claude Code session. Message any teammate directly to give instructions, ask questions, or redirect.

Shut down and clean up

Ask the researcher teammate to shut down

When done:

Clean up the team

Always use the lead to clean up. Shut down all teammates first.

Best Practices

1. Give teammates enough context in spawn prompts - they don't inherit the lead's conversation history
2. Size tasks appropriately - self-contained units producing clear deliverables (a function, test file, or review)
3. Aim for 5-6 tasks per teammate to keep everyone productive
4. Avoid file conflicts - break work so each teammate owns different files
5. Start with research/review tasks if new to agent teams
6. Monitor and steer - check in on progress, redirect as needed

Prompt Templates

Parallel code review

Create an agent team to review PR #142. Spawn three reviewers:
- One focused on security implications
- One checking performance impact
- One validating test coverage
Have them each review and report findings.

Competing hypotheses debugging

Users report the app exits after one message instead of staying connected.
Spawn 5 agent teammates to investigate different hypotheses. Have them talk to
each other to try to disprove each other's theories, like a scientific debate.
Update the findings doc with whatever consensus emerges.

Multi-angle exploration

I'm designing a CLI tool that helps developers track TODO comments across
their codebase. Create an agent team to explore this from different angles: one
teammate on UX, one on technical architecture, one playing devil's advocate.

Troubleshooting

• Teammates not appearing: Press Shift+Down to cycle through; check tmux is installed for split mode
• Too many permission prompts: Pre-approve common operations in permission settings before spawning
• Teammates stopping on errors: Check output and give additional instructions, or spawn a replacement
• Lead implements instead of delegating: Say "Wait for your teammates to complete their tasks before proceeding" or use delegate mode
• Orphaned tmux sessions: tmux ls then tmux kill-session -t <session-name>

For full configuration details, architecture, and limitations, see references/configuration.md.