swarm

name	swarm
description	Search across multiple projects in your organization's swarm. Use when you need cross-project patterns, org-level conventions, shared decisions, or want to know how other projects solved a problem. Complements the oak (team) skill which covers single-project knowledge. Also use when the user mentions swarm_search, swarm_fetch, swarm_nodes, swarm_status, or asks about what other teams/projects have done, cross-project dependencies, org-wide patterns, or collective knowledge across the organization.
allowed-tools	Bash, Read
user-invocable	true

Swarm

The swarm is a federation of teams across your organization. Each team is a project with its own machine and developer nodes — its own memories, sessions, plans, and codebase knowledge. The swarm connects these teams so you can search and retrieve knowledge from all of them at once.

Use MCP tools (swarm_search, swarm_fetch, swarm_nodes, swarm_status) to access collective knowledge. If MCP tools are not available, fall back to the CLI commands shown below.

Architecture at a Glance

Organization Swarm
├── Team A (this project)
│   ├── Node: developer laptop
│   └── Node: CI server
├── Team B (api-service)
│   └── Node: developer laptop
└── Team C (mobile-app)
    ├── Node: developer laptop
    └── Node: staging server

• Swarm = organization-level federation of teams
• Team = a single project (has its own .oak/ci/activities.db)
• Node = a machine running the team daemon within a project

The swarm aggregates knowledge across teams. The team federates tool calls across nodes within one project. This skill is for the swarm layer.

When to Use Swarm vs Team

Question	Use Team (oak)	Use Swarm
How does auth work in this project?	oak_search
How do we handle auth across projects?		swarm_search
What patterns exist org-wide for error handling?		swarm_search
What was decided about our API design?	oak_search
What API conventions do other teams follow?		swarm_search
What depends on this module locally?	oak_context
Which other projects depend on our shared library?		swarm_search

Rule of thumb: Team = "this project", Swarm = "the organization".

Quick Start

Search then Fetch (primary workflow)

The two-step pattern keeps responses focused — search returns summaries with IDs, fetch returns full content for the items you care about.

# 1. Search across all connected teams
swarm_search(query="retry with exponential backoff", search_type="memory")

# 2. Get full details for specific results
swarm_fetch(ids=["chunk-id-from-search"], project_slug="api-service")

Discover connected teams

swarm_nodes()

Returns each team's project slug, connection status, and capabilities.

Check connectivity

swarm_status()

Returns whether this node is connected to the swarm, the swarm ID, and peer count.

Tool Reference

MCP Tool	Purpose	Key Args
swarm_search	Search memories, sessions, plans across all teams	query, search_type (all/memory/sessions/plans), limit
swarm_fetch	Get full details for search result IDs	ids (list of chunk IDs), project_slug
swarm_nodes	List connected teams and their capabilities	(none)
swarm_status	Check swarm connection health	(none)

Search Types

• all — everything (default, good starting point)
• memory — observations, decisions, gotchas, discoveries across teams
• sessions — session summaries from other projects
• plans — planning documents and architectural decisions

Code search is NOT available via swarm. Use oak_search (team skill) for code search within the current project.

CLI Fallback

If MCP tools are unavailable, use the CLI:

# Search across the swarm
oak-dev swarm search "retry with exponential backoff" --type memory

# List connected teams
oak-dev swarm nodes

# Check connectivity
oak-dev swarm status

Common Patterns

Find how other teams solved a problem

swarm_search(query="database migration strategy", search_type="all")
# Review results, then fetch the most relevant
swarm_fetch(ids=["<id>"], project_slug="<project>")

Discover org-wide conventions

swarm_search(query="error handling conventions", search_type="memory")

Check cross-project impact before a breaking change

swarm_search(query="shared authentication service", search_type="memory")

Find decisions made by other teams

swarm_search(query="chose PostgreSQL over MongoDB", search_type="memory")

Understand what a team has been working on

swarm_search(query="recent refactoring", search_type="sessions")

Tips

• Start broad, narrow down. Use search_type="all" first. If results are noisy, switch to memory or sessions.
• Use project_slug from results. Search results include the originating project — pass it to swarm_fetch to get full details.
• Check nodes first if search returns nothing. Run swarm_nodes() to verify teams are connected. If the list is empty, the swarm may not be configured or the daemon may be offline.
• Combine with team skill. Use swarm to find cross-project patterns, then use oak_search to find the local implementation of that pattern.