herdr-workstation

name	herdr-workstation
description	Use this skill when a project agent needs to spin up, inspect, communicate with, or remove Herdr-managed workstations for long-running multi-agent tasks. It provides a Typer CLI for dynamic Herdr workspaces, provider-specific agent panes, pane-to-pane notifications, semantic role state reporting, and bounded creator/reviewer loops with durable receipts.
triggers	["herdr workstation","herdr subagents","visible subagent loop","dynamic herdr workspace","spin up herdr workspaces","communicate with herdr agent","petey qbert dewey herdr","creator reviewer loop herdr"]
provides	["herdr-workstation-orchestration","visible-subagent-runtime","dynamic-agent-workspaces","pane-agent-communication","creator-reviewer-loop-runtime"]
composes	["best-practices-python","best-practices-skills"]
complies	["best-practices-skills","best-practices-python"]
runtime_self_improvement	basic
taxonomy	["orchestration","progress-tracking","agent-runtime","receipts","terminal-control"]

Herdr Workstation

Use this skill when subagent work should be visible, attachable, and recoverable in Herdr instead of hidden in opaque background jobs.

Boundary

Herdr is the live terminal/session fabric. It manages workspaces, tabs, panes, provider agents, agent state, pane reads, and pane input.

The project agent, T'au, monitor-sparta, or the calling workflow remains the source of truth for queue selection, policy gates, receipts, review verdicts, and final PASS/BLOCKED decisions.

Do not use Herdr chat as the canonical approval record. Use Herdr messages as live instructions or notifications; require durable work orders, receipts, and final JSON.

When to use

Use Herdr workstations for long-running or multi-agent tasks where progress visibility and intervention matter:

• creator/reviewer loops
• Petey/Qbert/Dewey style monitor-sparta work
• prompt-health approval gates
• QRA generation with reviewer approval
• live validators, logs, and receipt tailing
• tasks that may block and need human/project-agent steering

Use headless execution for tiny deterministic helpers, one-shot transforms, and short validators.

Commands

Run through the skill wrapper:

./run.sh doctor
./run.sh workstation create --repo ~/agent-skills --label ms-qra-gap-1842
./run.sh agent start .herdr-workstations/<run>/workstation.json --name qbert-codex --role qbert --command codex
./run.sh agent start .herdr-workstations/<run>/workstation.json --name petey-opencode --role petey --command opencode --split right
./run.sh agent send qbert-codex --file .runs/<run>/work-orders/qbert.md
./run.sh agent read petey-opencode --lines 120
./run.sh agent report --agent Qbert --state blocked --custom-status waiting-petey-pass
./run.sh workstation remove .herdr-workstations/<run>/workstation.json

Durable communication pattern

Preferred subagent coordination:

1. Main project agent writes a work order.
2. Main project agent starts or reuses a Herdr workstation.
3. Main project agent sends the work-order path to the target pane.
4. Subagent writes a receipt or handoff file.
5. Main project agent reads receipt and advances the workflow.

Pane-to-pane messages should be bounded notifications, for example: "handoff ready at path X". They should not replace receipt-backed review.

Environment guards

Agents running inside Herdr can report semantic state with HERDR_PANE_ID. Herdr sets HERDR_ENV=1, HERDR_WORKSPACE_ID, HERDR_TAB_ID, and HERDR_PANE_ID inside managed panes. If those are missing, pass --pane-id explicitly or do not report pane state.

Provider panes

A single workstation can run different providers in different panes:

./run.sh install-integrations codex opencode claude kimi
./run.sh agent start workstation.json --name qbert-codex --role qbert --command codex
./run.sh agent start workstation.json --name petey-opencode --role petey --command opencode --split right

Verification

./sanity.sh
./run.sh verify

sanity.sh compiles the Python modules and runs CLI self-checks without requiring a live Herdr server.