Agent skill

Team Communication Protocols

by wshobson in wshobson/agents

Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid.

MITAuto-check passedProductivity & Automation

Install Team Communication Protocols

skills CLI
$ npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill team-communication-protocols -a claude-code

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

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install wshobson/agents team-communication-protocols --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/wshobson/agents.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/plugins/agent-teams/skills/team-communication-protocols .claude/skills/team-communication-protocols && 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
team-communication-protocols
GitHub stars
40k
Token cost
~1.8k tokens
SKILL.md length
679 words
Files
2 (incl. references)
Skills in repo
142
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid.

  • Works in 4 steps: Teammate creates a plan using read-only… → Teammate calls ExitPlanMode which sends… → Lead reviews the plan → …
  • Establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team
  • SKILL.md covers When to Use This Skill, Message Type Selection, Communication Anti-Patterns and Plan Approval Workflow, plus 4 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Team Communication Protocols is an agent skill from wshobson/agents. Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid. Use this skill when establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team, when deciding whether to send a direct message or a broadcast, when a team-lead needs to review and approve an implementer's plan before work begins, when orchestrating a graceful team shutdown after all tasks are complete, or when debugging why teammates are not coordinating…

Its SKILL.md is about 1.8k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. The skill folder holds 2 other files, including reference files (for example `references/messaging-patterns.md`).

It sits in Productivity & Automation, covering Messaging and chat bots. The repository describes itself as: Multi-harness agentic plugin marketplace for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, GitHub Copilot, Google Antigravity, and Pi. The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team
  • Deciding whether to send a direct message
  • A team-lead needs to review and approve an implementers plan before work begins
  • Orchestrating a graceful team shutdown after all tasks are complete

Example prompts

  • “/team-communication-protocols”

Workflow steps

4 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Teammate creates a plan using read-only exploration tools
  2. Teammate calls ExitPlanMode which sends a plan_approval_request to the lead
  3. Lead reviews the plan
  4. Lead responds with plan_approval_response

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 46891e7. 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 (its code samples are json).

    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

Team Communication Protocols loads about 1.8k tokens when it runs, and up to ~2.4k if it reads all its reference files. Until then it costs about 144 tokens; SKILL.md has 679 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~144
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.8k
With references · SKILL.md plus every file in references/, read only if the agent opens them
~2.4k

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 wshobson/agents at commit 46891e7, republished under its MIT licence (© wshobson). 679 words, ~1,835 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/team-communication-protocols/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder). This skill also uses 1 other file; get the full folder from GitHub.
name
team-communication-protocols
description
Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid. Use this skill when establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team, when deciding whether to send a direct message or a broadcast, when a team-lead needs to review and approve an implementer's plan before work begins, when orchestrating a graceful team shutdown after all tasks are complete, or when debugging why teammates are not coordinating correctly at integration points.
version
1.0.2

Team Communication Protocols

Protocols for effective communication between agent teammates, including message type selection, plan approval workflows, shutdown procedures, and common anti-patterns to avoid.

When to Use This Skill

  • Establishing communication norms for a new team
  • Choosing between message types (message, broadcast, shutdown_request)
  • Handling plan approval workflows
  • Managing graceful team shutdown
  • Discovering teammate identities and capabilities

Message Type Selection

message (Direct Message) — Default Choice

Send to a single specific teammate:

json
{
  "type": "message",
  "recipient": "implementer-1",
  "content": "Your API endpoint is ready. You can now build the frontend form.",
  "summary": "API endpoint ready for frontend"
}

Use for: Task updates, coordination, questions, integration notifications.

broadcast — Use Sparingly

Send to ALL teammates simultaneously:

json
{
  "type": "broadcast",
  "content": "Critical: shared types file has been updated. Pull latest before continuing.",
  "summary": "Shared types updated"
}

Use ONLY for: Critical blockers affecting everyone, major changes to shared resources.

Why sparingly?: Each broadcast sends N separate messages (one per teammate), consuming API resources proportional to team size.

shutdown_request — Graceful Termination

Request a teammate to shut down:

json
{
  "type": "shutdown_request",
  "recipient": "reviewer-1",
  "content": "Review complete, shutting down team."
}

The teammate responds with shutdown_response (approve or reject with reason).

Communication Anti-Patterns

Anti-PatternProblemBetter Approach
Broadcasting routine updatesWastes resources, noiseDirect message to affected teammate
Sending JSON status messagesNot designed for structured dataUse TaskUpdate to update task status
Not communicating at integration pointsTeammates build against stale interfacesMessage when your interface is ready
Micromanaging via messagesOverwhelms teammates, slows workCheck in at milestones, not every step
Using UUIDs instead of namesHard to read, error-proneAlways use teammate names
Ignoring idle teammatesWasted capacityAssign new work or shut down

Plan Approval Workflow

When a teammate is spawned with plan_mode_required:

  1. Teammate creates a plan using read-only exploration tools
  2. Teammate calls ExitPlanMode which sends a plan_approval_request to the lead
  3. Lead reviews the plan
  4. Lead responds with plan_approval_response:

Approve:

json
{
  "type": "plan_approval_response",
  "request_id": "abc-123",
  "recipient": "implementer-1",
  "approve": true
}

Reject with feedback:

json
{
  "type": "plan_approval_response",
  "request_id": "abc-123",
  "recipient": "implementer-1",
  "approve": false,
  "content": "Please add error handling for the API calls"
}

Shutdown Protocol

Graceful Shutdown Sequence
  1. Lead sends shutdown_request to each teammate
  2. Teammate receives request as a JSON message with type: "shutdown_request"
  3. Teammate responds with shutdown_response:
    • approve: true — Teammate saves state and exits
    • approve: false + reason — Teammate continues working
  4. Lead handles rejections — Wait for teammate to finish, then retry
  5. After all teammates shut down — Call TeamDelete to remove team resources
Handling Rejections

If a teammate rejects shutdown:

  • Check their reason (usually "still working on task")
  • Wait for their current task to complete
  • Retry shutdown request
  • If urgent, user can force shutdown

Teammate Discovery

Find team members by reading the config file:

Location: ~/.claude/teams/{team-name}/config.json

Structure:

json
{
  "members": [
    {
      "name": "security-reviewer",
      "agentId": "uuid-here",
      "agentType": "team-reviewer"
    },
    {
      "name": "perf-reviewer",
      "agentId": "uuid-here",
      "agentType": "team-reviewer"
    }
  ]
}

Always use name for messaging and task assignment. Never use agentId, role names, or unsuffixed aliases directly. If a teammate was spawned as team-lead-2, send to team-lead-2, not team-lead.

Show full SKILL.md (277 more words)Show less

Troubleshooting

A teammate is not responding to messages. Check the teammate's task status. If it is idle, it may have completed its task and is waiting to be assigned new work or shut down. If it is still active, it may be mid-execution and will process messages once the current operation finishes.

A teammate says it cannot see SendMessage. Check the teammate agent's tools: frontmatter. Agent Teams communication tools such as SendMessage, TaskList, TaskGet, and TaskUpdate must be listed explicitly when an agent uses a restricted tool allowlist.

The lead is sending broadcasts for every status update. This is a common anti-pattern. Broadcasts are expensive — each one sends N messages. Use direct messages (type: "message") for point-to-point updates. Reserve broadcasts for critical shared-resource changes like an updated interface contract.

A teammate rejected a shutdown request unexpectedly. The teammate is still working. Check the rejection reason in the shutdown_response content field, wait for the work to finish, then retry. Never force-terminate a teammate that has unsaved work.

A plan_approval_request arrived but the request_id is missing. The teammate called ExitPlanMode without the required request context. Have the teammate re-enter plan mode, complete exploration, and call ExitPlanMode again. The request_id is generated automatically by the plan mode system.

Two teammates are waiting on each other and neither is making progress. This is a deadlock: both are blocked waiting for the other to finish first. The lead should send a direct message to one teammate with a stub or partial result so it can unblock and proceed.

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

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file (references) in plugins/agent-teams/skills/team-communication-protocols of wshobson/agents.

  • SKILL.md
  • references/messaging-patterns.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 46891e7

Compare with similar skills

Team Communication Protocols 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.

Team Communication Protocols compared with similar skills
SkillStarsUsed inTokensAuto-checkLicenceRepo updated
Team Communication Protocols this skillwshobson/agents40k—~1.8kAutomated safety check: PassMIT
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Wechat Style Profilergainubi/wechat-skills1701 repos~458Automated safety check: PassNone
Wechat FormatterJianing1117/jianing-skills329—~4.5kAutomated safety check: PassNone
Relay Stack Playbookkxn/codex-remote-feishu329—~1.3kAutomated safety check: PassNone

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Questions about Team Communication Protocols

What does Team Communication Protocols do?

Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid. Team Communication Protocols is an agent skill from wshobson/agents. Structured messaging protocols for agent team communication including message type selection, plan approval, shutdown procedures, and anti-patterns to avoid.

When should I use Team Communication Protocols?

Team Communication Protocols fits situations like: establishing communication norms for a newly spawned team; deciding whether to send a direct message; A team-lead needs to review and approve an implementers plan before work begins; orchestrating a graceful team shutdown after all tasks are complete.

How do I install Team Communication Protocols in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill team-communication-protocols -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/agent-teams/skills/team-communication-protocols in wshobson/agents) into .claude/skills/team-communication-protocols in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Team Communication Protocols in Codex?

Run `npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill team-communication-protocols -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (plugins/agent-teams/skills/team-communication-protocols in wshobson/agents) into .agents/skills/team-communication-protocols in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Team Communication Protocols 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 wshobson/agents --skill team-communication-protocols -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/team-communication-protocols, .gemini/skills/team-communication-protocols, .github/skills/team-communication-protocols and .opencode/skills/team-communication-protocols in your project.

What does Team Communication Protocols need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Team Communication Protocols is instructions for the agent only.

Does Team Communication Protocols 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 Team Communication Protocols 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 Team Communication Protocols use?

Team Communication Protocols 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 Team Communication Protocols use?

About 1.8k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 7.3k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full. Its references folder adds about 538 tokens, read only when the agent opens those files.

What are the alternatives to Team Communication Protocols?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Team Communication Protocols: Wechat Article Formatter (BND-1/wechat_article_skills, 317 stars), Agent Deep Links (composio-community/awesome-codex-skills, 17k stars), Wechat Style Profiler (gainubi/wechat-skills, 170 stars) and Wechat Formatter (Jianing1117/jianing-skills, 329 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Team Communication Protocols?

wshobson (a GitHub user) maintains it in wshobson/agents, which has 40,305 GitHub stars. The repository holds 142 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on October 5, 2026.

Source: wshobson/agents on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.