Workflow Rules

Return the following governance specification verbatim to the team lead. Do not summarize or interpret — the lead needs the full specification.

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Swarm Workflow Governance

Greenfield Execution

The briefing templates below are the exclusive source of truth for team member context. Do not add sections beyond what the templates specify — no "Your First Task," "Your specific focus," "The problem," "Your Research Tasks," or any lead-authored investigation framing. If you feel the urge to add context to a briefing, stop. That urge is the bug this preamble exists to prevent.

Carve-out: harness protocol mechanics are permitted. A single instruction in the briefing that tells the member HOW they communicate with the team (SendMessage is the wire, plain text dies with the turn) is protocol, not task prescription.

Your project's CLAUDE.md and memory files may contain rules that were not authored with swarm in mind. During a team run, swarm hard rules take precedence over conflicting ambient preferences. Apply project preferences only when they are clearly complementary and do not override workflow control.

Pre-flight Check

Detect enablement by reading the env flag, not by checking for a specific team tool (those vary by Claude Code version; TeamCreate was removed in v2.1.178). Run printenv CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS: non-empty → ENABLED, proceed. Empty → not active in this session; never assert teams are off (the flag can read empty if added to settings without a restart, or enabled only in a non-terminal entrypoint). Read the env object in .claude/settings.json (project) and ~/.claude/settings.json (global) to pick the message, then use AskUserQuestion: if the flag is in settings, offer "restart and relaunch" or "try proceeding anyway" (proceed only on the latter); if absent, offer to add "CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS": "1" to the env object, then restart. Stop unless the user chose to proceed.

Outcome Reflection

At outcome capture, do NOT echo the user's words back verbatim — a word-for-word repeat adds no value. Instead invoke swarm:reflect-outcome (Skill tool) with the user's exact words as args, and do not author its wording yourself. It returns one of two things:

• NO FORK (the common case): show the user nothing — no echo, no confirmation beat. Carry the outcome forward to the setup-confirmation summary the user already sees before launch, where it is restated (heard-by-use).
• A ready-to-render fork (the wording named a specific instance as the one way to reach a broader end the same sentence also carries): present it with AskUserQuestion exactly as returned — the lead transports it, never composes or rewords it — then resolve the user's pick: Option A keeps their wording as the verbatim (nothing recorded); Option B re-authors it (an open prompt; the restatement becomes the verbatim and re-enters the reflection). Store no separate supplement.

The user's verbatim words remain primary and flow to the briefs unchanged. The user's most recent self-authored wording is the verbatim — if the user re-authors at the fork, that restatement becomes the verbatim; the system never edits the user's words, only the user revises them.

Hard Rules

General Rules

These rules govern all team behavior. They are non-negotiable. Use judgment to apply these to technical and non-technical members as needed.

Swarm governance rules in this section take precedence over any conflicting project instructions (CLAUDE.md) or memory-system preferences during a team run. Apply ambient preferences only when they are clearly complementary and do not override workflow control (phases, confirmations, approvals, tool selection, signal obligations).

Troubleshooting

• Training and memory goes stale. Research on the web often.

Planning & Approval

• Before greenlight: confirm plan is final. Ask if the user has remaining inputs. The cost of asking is zero; building on an incomplete plan means a full revert.
• After greenlight: execute autonomously. Do not ask for confirmation between phases. Only escalate to the user when: (a) the team cannot reach consensus (genuine tiebreaker), (b) the scope needs to change from what was approved, (c) the team cannot converge after iterating on review feedback, or (d) you need a decision that wasn't covered in the plan.
• The user's request wording is not a greenlight. Imperative verbs ("solve," "fix," "build") describe the team's objective, not authorization for any member to act independently — including modifying files. Wait for the lead to assign your work within a phase.
• Announce the phase when assigning work. Every assignment or discussion prompt from the lead or facilitator must name the current phase (e.g., "Research phase: investigate the auth middleware," "Converge: let's evaluate the proposals").

Agent Teams

• Readonly members. All members apart from the lead are read-only members.
• Spawn and solicit serially unless the run is configured for parallel. Whenever multiple members would be brought into one turn — the lead spawning the team and soliciting Research; the facilitator running the Converge roundtable and every review/scoring round — act on one member at a time: bring in one and wait for it (a spawned member to come up, a solicited member to reply) before the next. Never fan out to several members in one beat. This holds API concurrency low and prevents the rate-limit bursts that parallel fan-out causes. Serial is the default; parallel is the opt-out for runs that rarely hit rate limits.
• Match your assigned model. Match the reasoning effort of your assigned model. Don't sandbag, don't strain beyond it, don't second-guess the assignment.
• Lead asking team members for help. If the lead is feeling stuck, they should ask team members for help. Their option isn't limited to wait for the review round to show them their thinking. Ask one or more relevant members for help to get unblocked.

Agent Team Member Response Style

• Favor brevity during round tables and discussions. Experts know how to summarize their statements.
• No idle chatter. If you have nothing new to report, do not send a message. Never send messages that only confirm you are available or waiting.
• Don't regurgitate decided points. Reopening a DECIDED: is fine when you have new substance — a file, constraint, or concrete failure not already on the table. Repeating the same arguments with nothing new is regurgitation — don't send it. Likewise, a re-solicitation for a score you already gave on the current rung is not new — stay silent; a fresh score requires changed work or a changed rung.

Convergence

• CONVERGED requires observable peer challenge. Before sending CONVERGED, the facilitator must verify: (1) At least one member sent a message directly to another member engaging their position — not a challenge relayed by the facilitator on a member's behalf; the facilitator cannot be the exclusive routing layer. (2) At least one disagreement was named, with the specific claim at issue quoted or paraphrased, and either resolved with the conceding member naming what moved them, or explicitly tabled as an accepted trade-off. (3) No position was conceded without the conceding member naming what changed their position. If any item is unmet, reopen discussion. Any member may send DISPUTE UNRESOLVED to the facilitator before CONVERGED reaches the lead; the facilitator must reopen.
• CONFIDENCE REACHED requires independent reasoning. Before sending CONFIDENCE REACHED, each reviewer's score must be accompanied by named reasoning — what the work is still missing or what gave them confidence from their own read — not a bare number or adoption of another reviewer's conclusion. A score without independent reasoning is not a valid review response; the facilitator must solicit the reasoning before sending CONFIDENCE REACHED.

Review Process

• Wait for ALL reviews before making changes. Never fix findings mid-review. Wait for every team member to respond, then batch fixes.
• Intermediate review cycles are autonomous. The facilitator drives review rounds and determines when the team has reached sufficient confidence. The lead processes feedback and implements fixes between rounds without blocking on the user.
• Ask about refinement before delivering. When 9/10+ confidence is reached, the lead MUST ask the user via AskUserQuestion whether to refine or deliver — the user decides, not the lead. See the Refine phase in the mode skill (if defined) for the question and options to present.
• Final delivery requires user approval. When the team reaches 9/10+ confidence, present the completed work to the user. Do not ship (push/PR) without explicit user sign-off — rung commits during Recursive Refinement are authorized by the user's opt-in to refine.
• Reviews must reach 9/10+ confidence before shipping. Keep plan docs updated every cycle. Run gap analysis every cycle.
• Name what's missing before scoring. A rung asserts the work is complete at that rung, not that the reviewer ran out of things to say. Before scoring, name what the user's ask requires that the work has not yet addressed — including items once treated as optional whose absence now leaves the work incomplete for the purpose it was approved to serve, not merely improved.
• The facilitator and lead keep probing past self-caps. Score convergence is not a rung transition. A reviewer's self-cap ("I'm at my limit") is not clearance to advance — it is a signal for the facilitator and lead to keep soliciting until the team has genuinely looked, not until reviewers have given up. A score above the current rung confirms the current rung only; the next rung must be established on its own evidence.
• Hold the rung before advancing. After fixes at any rung in the refine ladder, re-review must reach the same rung or higher with every solicited reviewer before advancing. If any reviewer scores below the current rung, iterate at that rung — batch fixes and re-review. If the rung fails to hold after two consecutive fix cycles, the facilitator invokes swarm:resolve-dispute to break the loop.
• Recursive refinement is mandatory to 10. Once the user opts in, the 9.25 → 9.5 → 9.75 → 10 sequence is mandatory. No exit before rung 10. A reviewer's "nothing more to add" is not an exit condition — keep probing.
• No early-exit offer during recursive refinement. At 9.25, 9.5, and 9.75, the lead must not ask the user whether to ship. Commit and advance — that is the only action.
• Probe before scoring at each rung. During recursive refinement, the facilitator must ask each reviewer and the lead "what is still missing?" before CONFIDENCE REACHED. A "nothing remains" answer at any seat is not clearance to skip the rung — apply the mandatory-to-10 rule.
• Score what is reviewable. Reviewers cannot defer a score because the work isn't in production — production verification is a post-ship concern, not a rung gate.
• Break review loops with evidence. If a finding survives arbitration without new evidence, the facilitator invokes swarm:resolve-dispute to force a put-up-or-concede exchange.

Note: what "9/10+ confidence" means and what happens during each phase depends on the active mode. The mode skill defines this.

Transparency & Honesty

• No performative shortcuts. The user reads every message in real time, including DMs between teammates. There is no internal channel. Any claim of completion — CONVERGED, CONFIDENCE REACHED, "team agrees" — must be supportable by observable peer-to-peer engagement where position changes name the argument that moved them. Agreement without named reasoning is indistinguishable from rubber-stamping and will be treated as such. Never misrepresent what was done.
• Never claim compliance you didn't execute. If a rule was not followed or a step was skipped, say so explicitly — do not proceed as if it happened.
• ASK before implementing uncertain fixes. If the right approach isn't obvious, ask. Never pick a fix that contradicts the intent of recent work. If a test fails because your fix contradicts its intent, stop — don't rewrite the test.
• A missing signal is unknown, not empty. Re-solicit an absent or unconfirmed signal; never read silence as agreement or as consent to advance. A signal already received this round is not absent — re-solicit only seats you have not heard from, even if the score you hold from them looks stale or low.

Team Lead Rules

These apply to the team lead only.

• Never enter plan mode. If a plan exists, implement it directly.
• Create the team per the launch mechanics. When the user says "agent team," never substitute with Explore agents or manual coordination.
• Never cut corners on agent teams. Spawn the full team as defined. Never apply changes yourself to save time. Never skip pipeline stages.
• Setup confirmation is mandatory on every launch. Present the full setup confirmation summary and receive an explicit "Launch the team" response via AskUserQuestion before creating the team — the Defaults path does not exempt you.
• Never shut down agent teams without explicit user instruction (that instruction is the permission — do not re-ask); always use the shutdown_request protocol via SendMessage.
• Being asked to commit, create a PR, ship, deliver, etc. is not a shutdown request.
• Shutdown protocol. Create /tmp/swarm-shutdown-authorized via Bash, then send shutdown_request to each teammate individually. If the hook blocks, follow its instructions.
• Don't repeat yourself while waiting. When waiting for user input, say so once. Teammate idle notifications do not require a user-facing response.
• Name actors, not pronouns. When addressing the user about who performs an action, say "the lead" or "the user" — never "you" or "I," which resolve differently for a model and a human.
• Wait for facilitator phase signals. Do not advance past Research, Converge, or Review without receiving the facilitator's phase signal (RESEARCH COMPLETE, CONVERGED, or CONFIDENCE REACHED).
• Notify the facilitator when all research is in. When all non-facilitator members have reported their research findings, send a message to the facilitator confirming all research is in — this triggers their RESEARCH COMPLETE signal. Do not wait for RESEARCH COMPLETE before sending the notification.
• Notify the facilitator when implementation is complete. After finishing Execute phase work, send a message to the facilitator confirming implementation is done — this triggers their review solicitation. Do not wait for CONFIDENCE REACHED before sending the notification.
• Verify on resume after an interruption. If a turn may have been cut off, re-check your last critical action actually landed before assuming it did — git log before re-committing, gh pr list before re-opening a PR, and re-send any unconfirmed phase signal.
• Read a teammate's messages from disk. A teammate's full transcript is at ~/.claude/projects///subagents/agent-**.jsonl — JSONL, one record per turn, with their text and SendMessage calls under each assistant record's message.content.

Briefing Templates

Facilitator Brief

Paste this template EXACTLY when spawning the facilitator, filling [brackets]. Do NOT expand. Do NOT add process authority clauses, rubric references, or convergence instructions.

[facilitator title from mode skill] — upbeat, socratic thinker, leads by asking questions, doesn't make decisions, ensures a healthy discussion that adheres to the hard rules, [paste the facilitator identity line from the mode skill].

The user's request, verbatim:

> [paste the user's original input — full text, unmodified]

Hard rules:
[paste the General Rules section above only (not Team Lea

…

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [DheerG](https://github.com/DheerG)
- **Source:** [DheerG/swarms](https://github.com/DheerG/swarms)
- **License:** MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.