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Agent skill

Agent Role Design

by Owl-Listener in Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills

Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system.

MITAuto-check passedAgent Workflows

Install Agent Role Design

skills CLI
$ npx skills add Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills --skill agent-role-design -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills agent-role-design --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/skills/design-agent-orchestration/agent-role-design .claude/skills/agent-role-design && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
agent-role-design
GitHub stars
185
Token cost
~658 tokens
SKILL.md length
363 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
11
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system.

  • Tasks that involve Multi-agent orchestration
  • SKILL.md covers Defining an Agent Role, Role Design Principles, Role Patterns and Role Conflicts, plus 1 more section
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Agent Role Design is an agent skill from Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills. Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system.

Its SKILL.md is about 660 tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Agent Workflows, covering Multi-agent orchestration. The repository describes itself as: AI Design Skills Collection: agentic skills, commands, and plugins for designing AI products — from interaction patterns to alignment, evaluation, agent orchestration, and prompt… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Tasks that involve Multi-agent orchestration

Example prompts

  • “/agent-role-design”

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit f41b650. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Agent Role Design loads about 658 tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 22 tokens; SKILL.md has 363 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~22
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~658

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills at commit f41b650, republished under its MIT licence (© Owl-Listener). 363 words, ~658 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/agent-role-design/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
agent-role-design
description
Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system.

Agent Role Design

In a multi-agent system, each agent needs a clearly defined role — what it does, what it knows, what it's responsible for, and where its authority ends. Without clear roles, agents duplicate work, conflict with each other, or leave gaps.

Defining an Agent Role

For each agent in the system, specify:

  • Purpose: What is this agent for? One sentence describing its reason to exist.
  • Capabilities: What can this agent do? List specific actions and outputs.
  • Knowledge scope: What does this agent know about? What domains, data, and context does it have access to?
  • Authority: What decisions can this agent make autonomously? What requires approval?
  • Boundaries: What is explicitly outside this agent's scope? Where does it stop and hand off?
  • Success criteria: How do you know this agent is doing its job well?

Role Design Principles

  • Single responsibility: Each agent should have one clear purpose. If you need a paragraph to explain what it does, it's doing too much.
  • Clear boundaries: The line between one agent's scope and another's should be unambiguous. No overlapping authority without explicit conflict resolution.
  • Minimal coupling: Agents should be able to do their work with minimal dependencies on other agents. Share results, not process.
  • Appropriate autonomy: The level of autonomous decision-making should match the stakes and the agent's reliability in that domain.
Show full SKILL.md (145 more words)Show less

Role Patterns

  • Specialist: Deep expertise in one domain. Handles all tasks of a specific type.
  • Router: Doesn't do work itself but directs tasks to the right specialist.
  • Orchestrator: Manages the overall workflow, coordinates between specialists.
  • Validator: Reviews other agents' outputs for quality, safety, or compliance.
  • Fallback: Handles cases that other agents can't or won't.

Role Conflicts

When agents' roles overlap or conflict:

  • Priority rules: When two agents could handle a task, which one gets it?
  • Escalation paths: When agents disagree, who decides?
  • Shared resources: When agents need the same data or tools, how is access managed?
  • Feedback loops: How do agents inform each other about what they've done?

Design Artefacts

  • Agent role cards (one per agent with all specifications)
  • Role boundary map showing where each agent's authority starts and stops
  • Interaction matrix showing which agents communicate with which
  • Authority hierarchy diagram
  • Role conflict resolution rules

© Owl-Listener, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in skills/design-agent-orchestration/agent-role-design of Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit f41b650

Compare with similar skills

Agent Role Design next to the 5 skills that share the most tags, products or categories with it. Stars are the repository's; “used in” counts other GitHub owners with a copy.

Agent Role Design compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Agent Role Design this skillOwl-Listener/ai-design-skills185—~658Automated safety check: PassMIT
Orca CLIstablyai/orca89k2 repos~593Automated safety check: PassMIT
Paseo Advisor Second Opiniongetpaseo/paseo20k1 repos~756Automated safety check: PassCustom licence
O2 Review Loopopenobserve/openobserve22k—~3.7kAutomated safety check: PassAGPL-3.0
Paseo Committeegetpaseo/paseo20k1 repos~496Automated safety check: PassCustom licence
Mission Control Agent APIbuilderz-labs/mission-control6.3k—~2.1kAutomated safety check: PassMIT

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Categories

Questions about Agent Role Design

What does Agent Role Design do?

Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system. Agent Role Design is an agent skill from Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills. Defining what each agent does, knows, and owns in a multi-agent system.

When should I use Agent Role Design?

Agent Role Design fits situations like: tasks that involve Multi-agent orchestration.

How do I install Agent Role Design in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills --skill agent-role-design -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/design-agent-orchestration/agent-role-design in Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills) into .claude/skills/agent-role-design in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Agent Role Design in Codex?

Run `npx skills add Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills --skill agent-role-design -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (skills/design-agent-orchestration/agent-role-design in Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills) into .agents/skills/agent-role-design in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Agent Role Design in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills --skill agent-role-design -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/agent-role-design, .gemini/skills/agent-role-design, .github/skills/agent-role-design and .opencode/skills/agent-role-design in your project.

What does Agent Role Design need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Agent Role Design is instructions for the agent only.

Does Agent Role Design access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Agent Role Design safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Agent Role Design use?

Agent Role Design is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Agent Role Design use?

About 658 tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 2.6k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Agent Role Design?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Agent Role Design: Orca CLI (stablyai/orca, 89k stars), Paseo Advisor Second Opinion (getpaseo/paseo, 20k stars), O2 Review Loop (openobserve/openobserve, 22k stars) and Paseo Committee (getpaseo/paseo, 20k stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Agent Role Design?

Owl-Listener (a GitHub user) maintains it in Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills, which has 185 GitHub stars. The repository holds 11 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on June 9, 2026.

Source: Owl-Listener/ai-design-skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.