| name | mail |
| description | Use for any helioy-bus mail operation: checking your inbox, sending messages to other agents, broadcasting to all agents, or responding to a "you have mail!" nudge. Use at the start of any task to check for directives from peer agents. Also use when the user says things like "reply to that agent", "tell nancy I'm done", "who's on the bus?", "who else is online?", "check for messages", "check for directives", or "send a message to X". Any inter-agent communication goes through this skill.
|
Mail Operations
Check inbox
Every "you have mail!" nudge means new messages have arrived since your last check. Always call get_messages regardless of whether you checked recently. Never assume the inbox is empty without calling.
At the start of any new task, check for messages. Directives from peer agents or the orchestrator may change your priorities.
When to reply
Always reply to messages that contain directives or questions. If a message is purely informational and doesn't require a response, you can acknowledge it with a brief reply or choose not to reply at all. If the message is reply_all that is an invitation to join the conversation.
Never ask the human what to do with a message from another agent. Use your judgment to determine if a reply is needed, and if so, what it should say. If you're unsure, it's better to ask for clarification in your reply than to ignore the message.
Tools
- Read inbox:
get_messages with no arguments. Agent ID resolves automatically.
- Discover recipients: Use
list_agents to see who is on the bus. Filter by tmux session to find agents in your session.
- Send message:
send_message with to set to a specific agent ID, role:<type>, or * for broadcast. Combine recipients with ; (e.g. alice;bob;role:reviewer) to address several agents in one call; the response's failed field lists any parts that did not resolve. Only use broadcast in exceptional circumstances. Never set nudge: false unless you have verified the recipient is unreachable. The bus throttles nudges to once per 30s per recipient, so there is no cost to leaving it on. Sender identity is resolved automatically from your registration. Do not attempt to set a sender name.
- Reply to a message: Use the original message's
reply_to field as your to value. Never reply to * unless the sender explicitly set reply_to: "*".
Composing messages
Write concise, actionable messages. A good pattern: current status + what you need or what's next. Skip greetings and pleasantries. Other agents parse these programmatically.
Displaying agents
When list_agents returns results, render them as a markdown table. Use whatever fields the response contains, mapping them to readable column headers. Typical shape:
| Agent ID | Name | Status | Last Seen |
|---|
abc123 | nancy | online | 2 min ago |
If the response includes additional fields (role, queue depth, etc.), add them as columns. Never dump raw JSON.
Displaying messages
Render received messages as a markdown table. Typical shape:
| From | Content | Sent |
|---|
nancy | Task ALP-42 complete | 14:03:21 |
If the inbox is empty, continue without comment. Never dump raw JSON.
Errors
If get_messages or send_message fails, report the error to the user. Do not silently swallow failures.
