oa-dispatch

Dispatch Tasks to Other Agents

Use oa to delegate scoped coding tasks to a different AI model or backend. This is useful when you want to parallelize work, use a specific model's strengths, or offload a well-defined edit while you continue working.

When to dispatch

Dispatch works best for targeted, self-contained tasks with clear instructions:

• Edit a specific file or function
• Generate a test suite for a module
• Refactor a block of code to match a pattern
• Review a file for a specific concern (security, performance, etc.)

Do not dispatch vague or open-ended tasks. The receiving agent has no access to your conversation context — the prompt must be self-contained.

Basic command

Always pipe the prompt into oa instead of passing it as an argument. This keeps prompt content out of process listings (ps aux):

echo "<prompt>" | oa -b <backend> -m <model> --thinking <level>

All flags are optional. --thinking controls reasoning effort — supported levels vary by backend (e.g. low, medium, high). Omit it to use the backend's default.

For background execution with streaming visibility:

echo "Edit path/to/file.go: <specific instructions>" | oa -b claude --jsonl

For multi-line prompts, use a heredoc:

cat <<'EOF' | oa -b codex --jsonl
Edit internal/auth/handler.go: add rate limiting to the Login function.
Use x/time/rate with a limit of 5 requests per second per IP.
Do not modify any other functions. Do not ask for confirmation, just make the edits.
Run go test ./internal/auth/... when done.
EOF

Constructing effective prompts

The prompt must include everything the agent needs. Always include:

1. The file path to edit or read
2. What to do — be specific about the change
3. Constraints — what not to change, patterns to follow, tests to pass

Good prompt:

Edit internal/auth/handler.go: Add rate limiting to the Login function.
Use x/time/rate with a limit of 5 requests per second per IP.
Do not modify any other functions. Do not ask for confirmation, just make the edits.
Run go test ./internal/auth/... when done.