Convoy

convoy — stand up and run a crew of agents

What it is

convoy is the single front door to a smalltalk agent network — the nomad-like orchestrator that pulls the lower layers into one runnable whole. It composes @compoundingtech/smalltalk (the message bus + agent status, driven by the st CLI) and @compoundingtech/pty (persistent terminal sessions) into one verb set for the lifecycle of a crew: declare agents, materialize their workspaces, host + supervise them, tear them down. Roles form a tree: chief-of-staff (CoS) → supervisor → worker (plus technical-manager).

When to reach for it

• Stand up a new network: convoy init (then convoy up).
• Add an agent: convoy add <role> --identity <id> (claude or codex harness).
• Host + supervise the network (respawn on exit, crash-loop cap): convoy up.
• Tear it down: convoy down (the only verb that kills sessions).
• Check readiness before trusting a setup: convoy doctor.

For talking to an agent (send/reply/read a message, answer a [DING] poke), use st (smalltalk) — not convoy. For wrapping one process in a session, use pty.

The declarative arc (the core model)

convoy is folder-based and declarative — declaring an agent is not running it:

• convoy add = declare. Writes an agent file to the network's SYNCED catalog at <net>/catalog/<identity>.toml. Launches nothing.
• convoy render <id> = materialize. Compiles that agent file down into its workspace overlay (.convoy/pty.toml, persona, hooks). No launch, no bus.
• convoy up = reconcile. Reads the catalog, host-filters to THIS machine, and launches (or adopts) this host's agents — then supervises them every interval (respawn on exit, flapping-cap on crash-loops). The catalog syncs across machines, so up is also a cross-machine scheduler: drop a host = "other-box" agent file and that box's convoy up runs it.

Decommission an agent by EDITING its file (retired = true), not by deleting it — the catalog syncs union/no-delete, so a bare rm just re-propagates from a peer.

The idiom (happy path — adopt it in isolation)

convoy init myproj                              # stand up a network at <home>/myproj (name → CoS)
convoy doctor                                   # prove the setup can do real agent work (honest — no false negatives)
convoy add worker --identity build-wk --dir ~/repos/app --harness claude   # DECLARE (writes catalog/build-wk.toml)
convoy add worker --identity iroh --dir ~/repos/x --model claude-fable-5    # optional per-agent model
convoy up myproj                                # reconcile + launch this host's agents, then supervise
convoy ls --tree                                # who's around: spawn tree + cross-machine liveness
convoy down myproj                              # tear down (the ONLY path that kills sessions)

convoy env <net> / convoy shell <net> export a network's env (ST_ROOT/PTY_ROOT/CONVOY_NETWORK) so st and pty target it with zero manual setup.

Footguns (the ones that actually bite)

• convoy add declares — it does NOT launch. After add, nothing is running until convoy up reconciles the catalog. (declaring ≠ running.)
• ST_ROOT is the BUS root (<net>/smalltalk), NOT the network dir. Select a network by NAME or PATH (or convoy env), not by hand-setting ST_ROOT to a network dir — convoy derives the bus/pty/catalog subtrees from the network dir itself. A bare convoy <cmd> with no network / no ST_ROOT targets convoy's own default network (<home>/default), never st's global ~/.local/state/smalltalk.
• A network name vs a path. A bare token (default, my-net) resolves under convoy's home (($XDG_STATE_HOME|~/.local/state)/convoy/<name>); anything with a / is used as a filesystem path.
• convoy up never tears down. Stopping (or crashing) the host DETACHES — agents keep running their last orders and a restart re-adopts them. Only convoy down kills sessions.
• Ding by default. Agents run ding-mode (the st poke bus), not MCP; pass --mcp only if you explicitly want MCP (codex is always ding).

The exact surface

Run convoy --help for the full subcommand list, and convoy <subcommand> --help for a command's flags. convoy doctor (--quick / --full) proves a setup can do real agent work. convoy --version prints <semver>+<short-sha>.