# Brief > Delegate one unit of work to one named agent: fill a single MANDATE, send it, then go silent. Use when: brief, delegate, mandate, BRIEF state, delegate to a named agent, hand a unit of work off, put an idle agent to work, send a mandate. - Skill: `digital-stoic-org/brief` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add digital-stoic-org/brief` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/digital-stoic-org/brief/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: digital-stoic-org (https://skillmd.com/u/digital-stoic-org) - Updated: 2026-09-10 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/digital-stoic-org/brief --- # Brief BRIEF emits **one** mandate, to **one** named agent, then you are in WATCH — silent until a question or a report comes back. Never broadcast. Runs in the originating window: usually the orchestrator, but any agent that hands work off. **Read nothing here.** Skeleton and role lines below are complete and verbatim — they are the whole contract the delegate needs, and you must assume it has read nothing else. `../../references/protocol.md` holds the reasoning behind each field, for whoever amends the contract; opening it in this window spends the context this skill exists to protect. **Choose no model.** The delegate is a live agent in a window that already exists — its model was fixed when that window was opened, and a mandate cannot change it. ## 1. Source the work, and the boundary Arguments describe the work → `scope` and `knowledge_state`. Bare → ask. Never infer from the surrounding conversation, never invent. `owned_paths` / `hands_off` you assert from what you already hold. No plan file to consult, no roster to inherit. This is the one thing that cannot be deferred: two agents writing one path lose updates with no error at all — silent, unrepairable. ## 2. One message to the human Fold every outstanding question into a single plain-text message: the target's **name**, plus whatever step 1 left unsourced. ## 3. Fill ``` scope: what is yours / what is explicitly not yours orchestrator: the name of the agent sending this mandate — your only machine recipient owned_paths: [ABSOLUTE paths; trailing / = whole subtree — outside them you read, you do not write] hands_off: [shared, high-blast-radius files — a reminder on top of that rule, never the boundary] read_first: [ABSOLUTE paths, in order — a closed list. Anything else, ask me before opening it] deliverable: ABSOLUTE path you own — your findings land there, not in your report knowledge_state: established / hypothesis / to_discover stop_conditions: ... (must include "you discover the scope is wrong") cadence: when you are expected to report what_i_do_not_know: ... ``` - `scope` — state the negative half. An unstated boundary is one an agent crosses. - `orchestrator` — **your own name**: the delegate's only machine address, where its REPORT lands. Omitted → reporting becomes something only the human can relay by hand. One name is not a roster; questions and readbacks still print in the delegate's own window, for the human. - `owned_paths` — absolute, so nothing resolves against the delegate's cwd. Precise file when it exists, trailing `/` for a subtree it will populate. A subtree is owned **exclusively**: "you both write in `X/`, just use different filenames" partitions nothing — two agents asked to write up their notes both create `notes.md`. - `hands_off` — a few shared, high-blast-radius files it is likely to reach for. A reminder, never the boundary; the boundary is default deny. - `read_first` — **closed, ordered, and yours to decide.** `owned_paths` partitions writing; this partitions the delegate's incoming context, which is otherwise the one thing it spends entirely on its own judgement. Left empty, an agent handed a plan, an audit and a journal opens all three and a few neighbours "to be sure", and saturates before its first useful move. Name only what the work needs, and close the list: *anything else, ask me before opening it*. This does not contradict "read nothing at runtime" — that rule is about the contract, never about the project's own documents. - `deliverable` — one absolute path, inside `owned_paths`, where its findings accumulate as it works. The REPORT then carries ten lines and this pointer instead of the content. Without it every fact lives only in a message: it inflates your window on arrival, and dies with the delegate's. - `stop_conditions` — always includes "you discover the scope is wrong". - `cadence` — criterion is **reversibility**, not milestones, not elapsed time. Name the points of no return where it stops and waits; everywhere else it reports and keeps going while you redirect asynchronously. Halting at every milestone makes the human the bottleneck. - `what_i_do_not_know` — mandatory, never empty. Hidden gaps get filled by plausibility at the other end. ## 4. Append these five lines verbatim, and send ``` Announce your state on a single line at every change: [READY] [READBACK] [WORK] [QUESTION] [REPORT]. In READBACK: three lines — mission as I understand it / assumptions I filled in / blocking gaps — then wait for my confirmation. If you discover that the scope you were given is wrong, switch to QUESTION immediately. That takes priority over the task. You emit a message only on a state transition. The rest of the time you are silent. When a stop condition or a cadence checkpoint fires, run team:report. It is the only message you send by machine. ``` Every mandate carries them. They are the delegate's entire contract — states, readback, the wrong-scope override, and the rule that it speaks only on a transition. Filled skeleton and role lines go out as **one** `SendMessage`, never two. **If the send fails** — tool error = delivery failure, not a state transition. Name it to the human in plain text and stop. No retry loop, no neighbouring name: a silent retry against a dead name loses a whole branch of work, a near-miss name drops this mandate in someone else's window. --- One mandate, one named target, then WATCH. The target answers in READBACK — in its own window, to the human, not back to you.