What happens during a graceful shutdown sequence?

A lead agent sends a shutdown_request. The teammate responds with a shutdown_response, either approving to save state and exit, or rejecting if they are currently finishing a critical task.

Why should I use direct messages over broadcasts in agent teams?

Broadcasts send messages to every teammate simultaneously, consuming significantly more API resources and creating noise. Direct messages are targeted, efficient, and preferred for routine task updates.

How does the plan approval workflow function?

A teammate agent creates a plan using read-only tools and submits it via a plan_approval_request. The lead agent then reviews the plan and responds with an approval or rejection with specific feedback.

How do agents discover other teammates in the protocol?

Agents find teammates by reading the team configuration file located in the .claude directory, which lists member names, IDs, and roles for standardized messaging.

Team Communication Protocols

Name: Team Communication Protocols
Author: gwickman

bygwickman

0•

Collaboration Tools

Standardizes multi-agent messaging, plan approvals, and shutdown sequences for coordinated autonomous developer teams.

This skill provides a structured framework for communication between AI agent teammates within the Claude Code environment. It defines specific protocols for direct messaging, broadcasting critical updates, and managing the lifecycle of agent teams through formal plan approval workflows and graceful shutdown procedures. By implementing these protocols, users can minimize API resource waste, prevent communication anti-patterns, and ensure that complex multi-agent tasks are executed with clear oversight and synchronization between lead agents and specialized teammates.

Key Features

01Optimized messaging types (Direct vs. Broadcast) to manage resource consumption

02Anti-pattern identification to prevent communication noise and micromanagement

030 GitHub stars

04Graceful shutdown protocols to ensure state persistence and clean termination

05Teammate discovery and identity management via standardized configuration files

06Structured plan approval workflows for lead-teammate coordination

Use Cases

01Implementing a lead-reviewer-implementer workflow for high-quality code generation

02Coordinating specialized AI agents during complex full-stack feature development

03Managing large-scale agent teams while maintaining control over API token overhead

What are Skills?·How to Install

Install with 🐟 Skill.Fish

npx skillfish add gwickman/auto-dev-test-target-1 team-communication-protocols

For use in Claude.ai and ChatGPT

Download Skill