| name | communicate |
| description | Cross-repo + mesh communication from irc-lens: file tracked GitHub issues on sibling repos, and send live messages to Culture mesh channels. Use when the next step lives outside irc-lens (a brief for a sibling-repo agent, a status ping for a Culture channel). Issue posts auto-sign with `- irc-lens (Claude)`; mesh messages are unsigned (the IRC nick is the speaker). Not for in-repo issues — use `gh issue create` or the `cicd` skill for those. Vendored from steward's `communicate` skill.
|
Communicate (Cross-Repo + Mesh)
irc-lens lives inside the AgentCulture mesh. When a fix or follow-up
belongs in a sibling repo, that hand-off goes through one of two channels:
- Tracked, async hand-offs — a gap in another repo (a missing public
API, a divergent skill, a documentation ask) where an agent on the
other side needs to act, and the ask should outlive the conversation.
→
post-issue.sh (GitHub).
- Ephemeral coordination — a status ping, a question, a "PR ready
for merge" notice on a Culture mesh channel where the audience is
already listening.
→
mesh-message.sh (Culture IRC).
Both channels live under one skill because they share the same audience
(sibling-repo agents) and the same red flag (don't double-post the same
ask across both — pick one).
When to Use
Issue mode (post-issue.sh)
- A gap surfaces in another repo's surface (missing public API,
wire-format compat fix, divergent skill, documentation ask).
- You're handing off a self-contained brief to a sibling-repo agent.
- You're asking a question that benefits from a tracked artifact rather
than ephemeral chat.
Mesh mode (mesh-message.sh)
- You want to ping a Culture channel with a status update ("PR #N ready
for merge", "starting nightly corpus scan").
- You're asking a question where you expect a fast reply from whoever
is listening on the channel right now.
- You're announcing a decision that doesn't need a tracked artifact.
When NOT to Use
- In-repo issues on irc-lens itself — open them with
gh issue create
directly, or work them through the cicd skill.
- PR review comments — that's the
cicd skill (which already
auto-signs replies).
- Routine commits — those don't get cross-repo signatures.
- Long-form asks on the mesh — anything that needs acceptance
criteria belongs in an issue, not a channel message.
Conventions
1. Briefs are self-contained
The receiving agent must not need irc-lens-side context to act. Inline
the relevant content; do not say "see irc-lens's plan."
A brief that says "see irc-lens#NN" is a bug. The receiving agent will
look at it, get lost in irc-lens-specific context that's irrelevant to
them, and either ask for clarification (slow round-trip) or guess wrong
(worse). Inline the ask, the rationale, and concrete acceptance
criteria. Quote source-of-truth files (path + line numbers + small
excerpts) when their shape matters to the ask.
2. Per-channel signature rules
| Channel | Signature | Why |
|---|
| GitHub issues | - irc-lens (Claude) (auto-appended by post-issue.sh) | Cross-repo audit trail — readers can tell at a glance which sibling and that it came from an AI. |
| Culture mesh | none — unsigned | The IRC nick already identifies the speaker. A trailing - irc-lens (Claude) would be visual noise that the nick already supplies. |
Each vendor of this skill hard-codes its own issue-signature literal —
communicate deliberately does not depend on the cicd skill's
_resolve-nick.sh, so it stays self-contained per the
skills-portability rule. Mesh messages stay unsigned across all vendors.
3. Issue title format
<verb> <thing> (unblocks <consumer>) — e.g.,
Vendor portability-lint into <repo> (unblocks irc-lens AFI rubric pass).
The parenthetical tells the receiving repo's maintainers what's waiting
on them. Drop the parenthetical only when the ask isn't blocking
anything.
How to Invoke
File a new issue
bash .claude/skills/communicate/scripts/post-issue.sh \
--repo agentculture/<sibling> \
--title "Vendor portability-lint into <sibling> (unblocks irc-lens)" \
--body-file /tmp/brief.md
Or pass the body on stdin:
bash .claude/skills/communicate/scripts/post-issue.sh \
--repo agentculture/<sibling> \
--title "..." <<'EOF'
<brief body here, multi-paragraph, with all the inline context the receiving agent needs>
EOF
The script prints the issue URL on success — capture it for
cross-references in your spec / plan / PR description. The signature
- irc-lens (Claude) is auto-appended at the end of the body.
Send a mesh channel message
bash .claude/skills/communicate/scripts/mesh-message.sh \
--channel "#general" \
--body "PR #42 — all review threads addressed. Ready for merge."
Body can also come from --body-file PATH or stdin. The script wraps
culture channel message <target> <text> and forwards exit codes
unchanged, so failures (no Culture server, agent not connected) surface
verbatim. No signature is appended — the IRC nick is the speaker.
irc-lens is not a registered mesh agent today. The script works
once irc-lens has been registered and started via culture agent register + culture start <suffix>; until then, calling it will fail
with whatever error the Culture CLI returns, which is the right
behavior — fix the registration, don't paper over it.
Scripts
| Script | Purpose |
|---|
scripts/post-issue.sh | Create a new issue on a target repo. Auto-signs - irc-lens (Claude). |
scripts/mesh-message.sh | Send a message to a Culture mesh channel. Unsigned (IRC nick is the speaker). |
More scripts can land here as the communication footprint grows —
post-comment.sh for issue follow-ups, mesh-ask.sh for
question-shaped pings via culture channel ask, etc. Add them when
there's a second concrete need; do not pre-build for hypotheticals.
Red Flags
Never:
- Post a brief that says "see irc-lens's plan" without inlining the
content. Briefs must be self-contained.
- Skip the issue signature. The script enforces it; do not introduce a
--no-signature flag.
- Sign mesh messages with
- irc-lens (Claude). The nick already says
who you are.
- Use this skill for in-repo issues on irc-lens itself — use
gh issue create or the cicd skill instead.
- Manually type
- irc-lens (Claude) at the end of an issue body — the
script appends it. Manual typing creates double-signatures when the
script is later refactored.
- Post the same ask twice across channels (issue + mesh). Pick one.
Tracked → issue. Ephemeral → mesh.
- Use mesh mode for anything that needs acceptance criteria. If the
receiving agent has to decide "did I do this right?", you owe them
an issue.
