Team Communication Protocols
Teaches agent teams how to message each other, approve plans, and shut down cleanly.
- Repository
- wshobson/agents
- Stars
- 42,095
- Licence
- MIT
- Files
- 2 files
What it does
This skill gives an AI agent a playbook for coordinating with other agents on a team. It explains when to send a direct message versus a broadcast to all teammates, how a lead reviews and approves a teammate's plan before work starts, how to shut a team down gracefully, and which common coordination mistakes to avoid. It also tells the agent where to find teammate names in a team config file.
Great for
- Developers running multi-agent teams (for example, a lead agent coordinating several implementer and reviewer agents)
- Anyone setting up Claude Code Agent Teams who wants consistent messaging and shutdown behavior
- Leads debugging teammates that are stuck, waiting on each other, or not coordinating at integration points
Skip it if
- Single-agent workflows with no teammates, where none of these protocols apply
- Users who have not set up multi-agent teams; the instructions assume a team environment with specific message types such as SendMessage and TaskUpdate
- Anyone expecting a general-purpose messaging or chat tool; it only defines conventions for agents talking to each other inside a team
Try asking
- “Set up communication norms for my newly spawned team of three agents before they start the API and frontend work.”
- “My implementer's plan needs review before it writes code. Walk me through approving or rejecting it.”
- “Shut down my agent team gracefully now that all tasks are complete, and handle any teammate that refuses.”
- “Two of my teammates seem to be waiting on each other. Help me diagnose the deadlock and unblock them.”
Install in 3 steps
- 1
Download the skill
The ZIP contains the 2 original files, the MIT licence and an attribution note.
team-communication-protocols.zip - 2
Add it to your agent
Claude Code (all projects)
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && unzip team-communication-protocols.zip -d ~/.claude/skills/Claude Code / Agent SDK (this project only)
mkdir -p .claude/skills && unzip team-communication-protocols.zip -d .claude/skills/Claude apps (web/desktop): Settings → Capabilities → Skills → Upload skill, and choose the ZIP.
- 3
Ask for the task
No special command needed — the agent reads the skill's description and loads it when your request matches. Try one of the prompts above.
Get better results
- Use direct messages by default and reserve broadcasts for critical shared-resource changes, since each broadcast costs one message per teammate.
- Always address teammates by their name, not their agentId or a role alias, as the skill specifies.
- Never force-terminate a teammate that may have unsaved work; wait for it to finish and retry the shutdown request.
What's inside
- references/messaging-patterns.md
- SKILL.md
Redistributed unmodified from wshobson/agents under the MIT licence. The assessment was drafted with AI from the skill's files on 2026-10-29. Skills can instruct your agent to run code — read SKILL.md and any scripts before installing.