Agents

Overview

The Agents skill manages agent composition and orchestration:

• Compose dynamic agents from traits (expertise + personality + approach)
• Spawn parallel agents for divide-and-conquer work
• Select appropriate models for task complexity

Agent Types

| Type | Definition | Best For | |------|------------|----------| | Named Agents | Pre-configured specialists (Engineer, Architect, QATester) | Recurring work, specialized expertise | | Dynamic Agents | Task-specific agents composed from traits | One-off tasks, novel combinations |

Using Named Agents

Task({
  subagent_type: "Engineer",
  prompt: "Implement the user authentication feature...",
  model: "sonnet"
})

Available Agents:

• Engineer - TDD implementation, battle-tested patterns
• Architect - System design, trade-off analysis
• QATester - Browser validation, quality gates
• backend-agent - API design, services
• frontend-agent - UI components, state
• security-agent - AppSec, OWASP Top 10
• data-agent - Database design, migrations
• sre-agent - Infrastructure, reliability

Composing Dynamic Agents

When you need a specific expertise combination:

Traits Available:

Expertise (domain knowledge):

• security, legal, finance, medical, technical
• research, creative, business, data, communications

Personality (behavior style):

• skeptical, enthusiastic, cautious, bold, analytical
• creative, empathetic, contrarian, pragmatic, meticulous

Approach (work style):

• thorough, rapid, systematic, exploratory
• comparative, synthesizing, adversarial, consultative

Example Compositions:

| Need | Traits | |------|--------| | Security architecture review | security, skeptical, thorough, adversarial | | Legal contract review | legal, cautious, meticulous, systematic | | Creative content development | creative, enthusiastic, exploratory | | Red team critique | contrarian, skeptical, adversarial, bold | | Quick business assessment | business, pragmatic, rapid, comparative |

Model Selection (CRITICAL)

| Task Type | Model | Speed | |-----------|-------|-------| | Grunt work, verification | haiku | 10-20x faster | | Standard implementation | sonnet | Balanced | | Deep reasoning, architecture | opus | Maximum intelligence |

Rule: Parallel agents especially benefit from haiku for speed.

Parallel Execution

Spawn multiple agents in ONE message for parallel work:

// All run simultaneously
Task({ subagent_type: "Intern", prompt: "Research company A...", model: "haiku" })
Task({ subagent_type: "Intern", prompt: "Research company B...", model: "haiku" })
Task({ subagent_type: "Intern", prompt: "Research company C...", model: "haiku" })

Spotcheck Pattern: Always launch a spotcheck agent after parallel work to verify consistency.

Task Prompt Requirements

When delegating, ALWAYS include:

1. WHY - Business context, why this matters
2. WHAT - Current state, existing implementation
3. EXACTLY - Precise actions, file paths, patterns
4. SUCCESS CRITERIA - What good output looks like

Task({
  subagent_type: "Engineer",
  prompt: `
    ## Context
    We're adding dark mode. Users have requested this feature.

    ## Current State
    Theme is in src/theme/, uses CSS variables.

    ## Task
    1. Add dark mode toggle to settings page
    2. Persist preference to localStorage
    3. Apply theme on page load

    ## Success Criteria
    - Toggle works in browser
    - Theme persists across refresh
    - No flash of wrong theme on load
  `,
  model: "sonnet"
})