Herdr

Herdr

At conversation start or a main-task change, resolve the caller and name its tab as soon as the task is clear, before substantive task work or a final answer. This applies to read-only questions and evaluations as well as implementation; neither an explicit Herdr request nor a need for parallel work is required. Use the CLI result to establish availability, not inherited environment variables; if the caller cannot be resolved, continue the task without naming.

Naming and delegation are independent. After the naming check, use Herdr as the first choice for useful parallel work, including independent subtasks of the same deliverable.

Name your own tab

When the task is clear, automatically give your tab a short, concrete task label in the user's language, including for work that needs no parallel lanes. For example: 修复登录跳转 or Herdr Tab 自动命名. Re-evaluate the label when the user replaces or switches the main task, even if the existing label is already descriptive or was set in an earlier session. Progress updates, follow-up questions, and subtasks of the same goal do not require renaming.

• Set the label directly from the current task, regardless of the existing name or who set it. Do not add a name-preservation check or ask for confirmation. The user can manually change it afterward.
• Determine delegation from the task's explicit handoff context, not focus, pane count, or the CLI's Agent kind. When delegating, include your tab ID and who owns naming of the destination tab. A delegate sharing its parent's tab leaves naming to the parent; a delegate in a separate tab names it for its assigned task. If a delegated task lacks this context, resolve the parent's tab or naming assignment before renaming; continue the assigned work if that cannot be resolved.

1. Run herdr pane current --current and read result.pane.tab_id to locate yourself, regardless of which pane the user has focused. If the caller cannot be resolved, skip naming; do not fall back to the focused tab.
2. Run herdr tab get <tab_id> and read result.tab.label. Respect the delegation ownership above; skip the write if the desired label already matches.
3. Run herdr tab rename <tab_id> '<task label>', passing the label as one safely quoted argument. Read the tab back and verify result.tab.label matches. If naming fails, report it briefly and continue the task.

Only change the tab label; keep workspace names, focus, order, and panes intact. The tab label is distinct from terminal_title and the Agent's conversation title. When creating a new tab through scripts/route-lane.ts, pass a task label with --label so it is recognizable immediately.

Principles

• Parallelize when the time saved outweighs coordination cost. Choose the split from dependencies and write boundaries; status questions and tightly coupled steps stay with their owner.
• Keep responsibility for the complete result. Continue useful work while delegated tasks run, adapt to user steering, and integrate their results before declaring completion.
• Give each Agent the target cwd, a clear outcome, write ownership, and enough context to work independently. Reuse a suitable active Agent; resolve actual write collisions with a single writer.
• Treat Agent states as coordination signals. Verify the requested result from output and artifacts; inspect failed or timed-out submissions before resending them.
• Own the resources you create. Collect and close finished one-off work promptly; retain services or Agents only while needed. Clean only task-owned resources, never the caller's pane; verify removal and report intentional retention. A cleanup failure does not authorize closing a wider group.

Herdr operations

Use scripts/route-lane.ts for new oneshot, service, or coding-agent lanes. It owns directory/workspace matching and returns resource IDs plus lane.cleanup_command; start work separately in the returned pane. Use its --help for arguments.

Resolve the caller with herdr pane current --current and carry explicit IDs through routing and cleanup. Actual CLI responses determine availability; inherited HERDR_* variables do not. Keep the user's focus unless asked to switch.

Consult the installed CLI's relevant group help for Agent start, prompt, wait, reads, or concrete failures. Use the returned cleanup command for each lane and inspect failures before choosing recovery.