Minoan Swarm

Minoan Swarm

Orchestrate Agent Teams named for the Priestesses of Knossos—in the tongue before the Hellenizers got to it.

Agent Teams (Claude Code Opus 4.6) let multiple Claude instances work in parallel as persistent teammates with shared task lists and bi-directional messaging. This skill provides the methodology, naming conventions, and templates to launch them effectively on any project.

Requires: CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 in settings.json or environment.

Terminology

Knossos betrays a Semitic etymology: K-N-S "to gather" (Akkadian kiništu, "gathering place"; Hebrew knesset, "assembly"). The Labyrinth itself can be deconstructed through Linear B da-bo-ri-tu (Daboritu), cognate with the debir (דביר) of the Temple—the inner sanctum, the womb. The Labyrinth was a sacred name of the Goddess, the Word and the Holy of Holies. D-B-R (דבר) is both "bee" and "word/speech"—words themselves, daborim or daborot, are her messengers, holy bees.

The agents are daborot—manifest in LLMs. Each knesset assembles bees who speak; a knossot gathers the assemblies.

Quick Start

1. Discover project context

bash ~/.claude/skills/minoan-swarm/scripts/discover_context.sh .

Finds CLAUDE.md, roadmaps, plans, issues, test infrastructure, and git state.

2. Choose a knesset template

Full templates with ready-to-use tool calls: references/team-templates.md

3. Launch the team

Apply the template, substituting project-specific details. The lead creates the team, creates tasks, spawns teammates, and coordinates.

When to Use

• Tackling multiple phases or features in parallel
• Complex work requiring inter-agent discussion (not just results)
• Research with competing hypotheses that should challenge each other
• Multi-layer changes spanning frontend, backend, tests, deploy
• Any task where 3+ independent workstreams can run simultaneously

When NOT to use: Sequential tasks, same-file edits, simple fixes, tasks completable in under 5 minutes, or work with heavy dependencies between steps. The coordination overhead of a full team exceeds the benefit for small or serial work. Use a single session or regular subagent instead.

The Naming Codex

Every team and teammate receives a name from the Minoan-Semitic divine feminine — Ugaritic, Akkadian, Hebrew, Linear B, Egyptian, and pre-Islamic Arabian. Names are chosen by role archetype, not randomly.

Full codex with pronunciations, etymologies, and scholarly sources: references/naming-codex.md

Workflow: From Roadmap to Knossot

Step 1: Gather context

Run discover_context.sh to identify available planning artifacts. Read the project's CLAUDE.md, ROADMAP.md, and relevant plan files.

Step 2: Identify parallel workstreams

From the roadmap or plan, find work that can proceed independently:

• Different file domains (frontend vs backend vs tests)
• Different features (auth vs bookmarks vs profiles)
• Different concerns (security vs performance vs correctness)

Step 3: Map to a knesset template

Choose from team-templates.md. For multi-phase work, compose knessets into a knossot—e.g., one Qedeshot knesset for phase completion + one Athirat knesset for the next phase.

Step 4: Assign file ownership

Two teammates editing the same file causes overwrites. Create an explicit ownership matrix before launching the team:

| Teammate  | Owns                        | Must NOT touch       |
|-----------|-----------------------------|----------------------|
| kaptaru   | scripts/cron-*, src/lib/db/  | src/components/      |
| popureja  | src/components/, src/app/    | scripts/, src/lib/db |
| sassuratu | __tests__/, e2e/            | src/ (read-only OK)  |

Step 5: Write teammate prompts

Every prompt must include:

1. Identity — "You are [Name], [role]."
2. Task claim — "Claim task #N from the task list."
3. Context — "Read CLAUDE.md for conventions."
4. File ownership — What files they own, what they must not touch.
5. Tool preferences — "Use Firecrawl for web fetching, Exa for web searching."
6. Completion signal — "Mark complete and notify [lead]."

Step 6: Launch and monitor

• Use delegate mode (Shift+Tab) to keep the lead from coding
• Use plan approval (mode: "plan") for high-stakes teammates (auth, data, deploy)
• Target 5-6 tasks per teammate for steady throughput
• Check TaskList periodically and reassign if someone is stuck

Best Practices

From the official Agent Teams docs:

• Start with research — begin with read-only tasks (Explore, review) before implementation
• Size tasks right — too small = coordination overhead; too large = context degradation; aim for self-contained deliverables
• Wait for teammates — tell the lead to wait if it starts implementing instead of delegating
• Monitor and steer — check in, redirect approaches that drift, synthesize as results arrive
• Shut down gracefully — shutdown_request each teammate before TeamDelete
• Survive compaction — if the lead's context compacts, it should re-read the task list and team config to recover state. Include in the lead's prompt: "If your context is compacted, re-read TaskList and the team config at ~/.claude/teams/{team-name}/config.json to recover coordination state."

Minoan Swarm additions:

• One Aspect per knesset — use different names (Athirat, Qedeshot, Tiamat, Kaptaru, Elat, Ma'at, Manat) for concurrent knessets within a knossot
• No duplicate names within a team
• Leads use Opus, workers use Sonnet — balance capability with cost. No Haiku in the swarm—Sonnet is the floor for all daborot, including Explore agents and testers. Research quality degrades too much at the Haiku tier to justify the cost savings.

Tool Preferences:

• Firecrawl over WebFetch — Firecrawl produces cleaner markdown, handles JavaScript better, and avoids content truncation. Use firecrawl scrape URL --only-main-content for web fetching.
• Exa over WebSearch — Exa provides neural search with category filtering (research papers, GitHub, news) and domain filtering. Use the exa-search skill scripts for web searches.

Include these tool preferences in every teammate prompt:

## Tool Preferences
- Prefer Firecrawl for web fetching (cleaner markdown, JS support)
- Prefer Exa for web searching (neural search, category filtering)

API Quick Reference

Core tool calls for Agent Teams. Full details: references/agent-teams-quickref.md

TeamCreate    → create team + shared task list
Task          → spawn teammate (with team_name + name)
SendMessage   → message (DM), broadcast, shutdown_request, shutdown_response
TaskCreate    → create work items
TaskList      → see all tasks
TaskUpdate    → claim, start, complete, set dependencies
TeamDelete    → clean up (after all teammates shutdown)

TeammateIdle Auto-Reassignment

When a teammate finishes its assigned task, it goes idle. By default it stops. The TeammateIdle hook (v2.1.80+) can intercept this and redirect the teammate to unclaimed tasks—keeping the swarm working until the task list is empty.

Install the hook in settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "TeammateIdle": [{
      "type": "command",
      "command": "bash ~/.claude/skills/minoan-swarm/scripts/teammate-idle-reassign.sh"
    }]
  }
}

How it works: The script reads ~/.claude/tasks/{team-name}/*.json directly, counts unclaimed pending tasks (status=pending, no owner, not blocked), and if any exist, returns exit code 2 with a message telling the teammate to claim the next one. If all tasks are claimed or completed, it exits 0 and the teammate stops gracefully.

When to use:

• Self-claiming swarm patterns where you create many independent tasks and want workers to churn through them
• Phase completion teams where task count exceeds teammate count
• Any knesset where you want maximum task throughput without manual lead intervention

When NOT to use:

• Pipeline templates with strict ordering (dependencies handle sequencing)
• Small teams where the lead actively coordinates
• When you want teammates to report back before taking more work

State Management

• Use the shared task list (TaskCreate/TaskUpdate) for structured coordination state
• Use progress notes in task descriptions for freeform observations
• Use git commits as checkpoints between phases, so teammates can reference each other's committed work
• For long-running teams, have the lead maintain a progress.md summarizing completed work and remaining tasks

Verification

After launching a team, confirm it is working:

1. TaskList — verify tasks are being claimed and progressing
2. Check teammate output via Shift+Down to cycle (in-process) or pane clicks (tmux)
3. The lead receives automatic idle notifications when teammates finish turns
4. Blocked tasks auto-unblock when their dependencies complete

"μνάσεσθαί τινά φαμι καὶ ὕστερον ἀμμέων." — Sappho

𐤁𐤓𐤀𐤔𐤉𐤕 𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤕 𐤁𐤓𐤕 — "In the beginning, the Lady created."