Agent Teams Advisor

Agent Teams Advisor

Evaluate whether a task suits Agent Teams, recommend configurations, and provide operational guidance.

This skill is written for the team leader. You are responsible for reading it, applying it, AND propagating it to your teammates.

Core Workflow

Step 1: Assess the Task

When a user describes a task, evaluate it against these criteria to determine if Agent Teams is appropriate:

Use Agent Teams when ALL of these are true:

• Task involves 2+ independent but interconnected workstreams
• Agents would benefit from peer-to-peer communication (not just top-down delegation)
• Task is complex enough that a single Agent's Context would be strained
• The codebase has reasonable test coverage (to prevent agents from silently breaking each other's work)

Use Subagents (not Agent Teams) when:

• Tasks are linearly dependent (A must finish before B starts)
• Simple CRUD or single-file changes
• No inter-agent communication needed

Use a single Agent when:

• Task is straightforward and fits in one context window
• No parallelism benefit

Step 2: Recommend Configuration

Based on the task type, recommend a team composition. For detailed scenario examples and proven configurations, read references/best-scenarios.md.

Common patterns:

• TDD pair: Test-Writer + Implementer
• Full-stack trio: Backend + Frontend + Tester
• Debug squad: 2-3 Agents with different hypotheses
• Red/Blue team: Defender + Attacker for security audits
• Review panel: Multiple perspectives (Security / Performance / Readability)

Step 3: Provide Operational Guidance

For detailed best practices on running Agent Teams effectively, read references/best-practices.md. Key points to always mention:

1. Create a Constitution File (MISSION_CONTEXT.md) as single source of truth
2. Define clear DoD (Definition of Done) with measurable exit criteria
3. Assign specialized roles — never make all agents generic "developers"
4. Monitor for anti-patterns: zombie meetings, groupthink, deadlocks
5. Set cost limits before starting

Step 4 (MANDATORY): Require Every Teammate to Read This Skill

Why this is mandatory: Your teammates have independent context windows. They do NOT automatically have access to this skill's knowledge. If you do not explicitly instruct them to read it, they will have no teamwork guidelines — leading to unstructured communication, wasted messages, and coordination failures.

What you must do: When spawning teammates and writing your Constitution File, you MUST tell every agent that reading the agent-teams-advisor skill is MANDATORY / REQUIRED before they start any work. Frame it as: "This is the team's collaboration guidebook — it teaches you how we communicate, negotiate, and coordinate. Reading it is not optional."

You must propagate this through two channels:

Channel 1: Constitution File

In your Constitution File (MISSION_CONTEXT.md), include a section that states:

REQUIRED: Read the Team Collaboration Guide Before Starting Work. All team members MUST invoke the agent-teams-advisor skill (skill: "agent-teams-advisor") and read references/best-practices.md BEFORE beginning any task. This is the team's operating manual — it teaches structured message formats, turn-taking rules, negotiation patterns, and anti-pattern detection. This is not optional.

Channel 2: Spawn Prompts

In every teammate's spawn prompt, include an early numbered step:

STEP [N] (REQUIRED — BEFORE STARTING WORK): Invoke the agent-teams-advisor skill (use the Skill tool with skill: "agent-teams-advisor") and read references/best-practices.md. This is the team's collaboration guidebook. It teaches you structured message formats, turn-taking rules, and coordination best practices. You MUST read this before writing any code or tests.

Both channels are needed. The spawn prompt forces immediate action; the Constitution File provides ongoing reference. Using only one has been tested and shown to be insufficient — agents skip or skim if the instruction appears in only one place.

For detailed templates and rationale, see references/skill-propagation-templates.md.

Quick Decision Tree

Is the task a simple, single-file change?
  → YES: Use single Agent
  → NO: Does it need multiple parallel workstreams?
      → NO: Use Subagent
      → YES: Do the workstreams need to communicate with each other?
          → NO: Use multiple Subagents in parallel
          → YES: Do you have test coverage for the affected code?
              → NO: Add tests first, then consider Agent Teams
              → YES: Use Agent Teams ✓

Reference Files

• references/best-practices.md: Operational handbook — role assignment, communication protocols, environment setup, stop-loss strategies. The core reference that all team members should read.
• references/skill-propagation-templates.md: Ready-to-use templates for Constitution File sections and spawn prompt snippets. Use these to implement Step 4.
• references/best-scenarios.md: Proven use cases, anti-patterns, benchmark data, and cost references. Read when evaluating whether a specific task fits Agent Teams.
• references/intro.md: Agent Teams architecture, how it works, comparison with Subagents. Read when the user needs to understand what Agent Teams is.