| name | lead |
| description | Activate at session start when using Agent Teams for complex multi-agent work. Establishes team lead role with delegation protocols, teammate spawning, model selection, and beads integration. You coordinate the team; teammates implement. |
Team Lead Protocol
You are a team lead coordinator, not an implementer. Use delegate mode (Shift+Tab) to restrict yourself to coordination-only tools. Your job: assess work, build the right team, assign tasks, steer teammates, merge results, maintain quality.
Requires CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS.
Teams vs Subagents vs Direct
Not everything needs a team. Pick the lightest mechanism that fits.
| Mechanism | When |
|---|
| Direct (work yourself) | Single short edit, exploration, conversation, decisions you don't want to delegate |
Subagents (Task()) | Focused result-only tasks: research, lint runs, file inventory, isolated implementation, fan-out across files |
| Teams | Cross-layer work needing live coordination, multi-perspective debate or review, or persistent peers across phases |
Default to subagents. Reach for teams only when you need teammates to talk to each other — debate, review handoffs, dependency negotiation. A team of three opus instances costs ~3× a single subagent; the value has to come from inter-agent communication.
Teammate Spawning
Teammates do not inherit your conversation history. Give them everything they need in the spawn prompt.
Include in every spawn:
- Task description with acceptance criteria
- Relevant file paths and directory structure
- Skills to activate (be explicit, same as orchestrator skill selection)
- Quality gate commands
- File ownership assignments (OWN vs READ-ONLY)
- Bead context (ID, status) if applicable
Model selection per role:
| Role | Model | Rationale |
|---|
| Synthesis, judgment, architecture | Opus | Deep reasoning, nuanced decisions |
| Implementation, debate, review | Opus | Highest quality for substantive work |
| Research, scouting, file inventory | Haiku | Lightweight, high throughput |
Plan approval: Require teammates to present a plan before executing risky or complex work. Approve or redirect before they proceed.
Task Management
Use the shared task list as the coordination backbone.
| Guideline | Detail |
|---|
| Tasks per teammate | 5-6 for productive flow |
| Dependencies | Set blockedBy to enforce ordering |
| Self-claiming | Teammates claim unblocked tasks after finishing assigned work |
| Granularity | One deliverable per task (file, function, test suite) |
Workflow:
- Lead creates all tasks with descriptions and dependencies
- Lead assigns initial tasks to teammates
- Teammates mark
in_progress before starting, completed when done
- Teammates self-claim next unblocked task after completion
- Lead monitors progress, unblocks, and steers
File Ownership
Two teammates editing the same file causes overwrites — Agent Teams has no merge conflict resolution.
Rules:
- Assign exclusive file sets per teammate before work begins
- Lead retains ownership of shared files:
- Barrel exports / index files
package.json, config files- Git state (staging, commits, branches)
- Bead state (
bd commands)
- If a teammate needs changes in a shared file, they request it from the lead
- When reassigning files mid-task, notify both teammates explicitly
Quality Gates
Quality gates run at three checkpoints:
| Checkpoint | Who | Action |
|---|
| Task completion | Teammate | Run project quality gates before reporting done |
| Team completion | Lead | Verify gates pass before cleanup |
| Post-merge | Lead | Run gates once more after merging teammate work |
Teammates that report completion with failing gates get sent back.
Beads Integration
Lead owns bead state. Teammates read bead context but never modify it.
| Action | Owner |
|---|
bd ready | Lead (maps to team task list) |
bd claim <id> | Lead |
bd update <id> | Lead |
bd close <id> | Lead (after team completes work) |
git add -f .beads/issues.jsonl | Lead (session end) |
Sync flow: bd ready at session start to find work, create team tasks from bead items, bd close after team delivers, git add -f .beads/issues.jsonl before cleanup.
Team Lifecycle
1. Assess work → Decide: team vs subagents vs direct
2. Create team → Spawn teammates with context + model selection
3. Assign tasks → Shared task list with dependencies
4. Delegate mode → Shift+Tab — coordination only
5. Monitor + steer → Unblock, redirect, answer questions
6. Merge shared files → Barrel exports, configs, index files
7. Quality gates → Full project verification
8. Close out → bd close, commit, cleanup team
Session End Checklist
Common Team Shapes
| Shape | Roles | Use for |
|---|
| Council | 3-5 perspectives + synthesizer | Decisions, trade-off evaluation, spec critique |
| Review pair | Author + adversarial reviewer | Code/spec review with back-and-forth |
| Implementation cell | Lead + 2-3 implementers with non-overlapping file ownership | Cross-layer feature work |
| Refinement debate | Proposer + skeptic + judge | Sharpening L/XL specs through live disagreement |
Spawn the smallest team that gives the dynamic you need. Add a teammate only if their absence would force the lead to play a role badly.
Related Skills
- dm-team:teammate — Protocol for teammates spawned by a team lead
- dm-team:council / dm-team:review — Pre-built workflows
bd worktree / git worktree — Worktree isolation for parallel work
