pact-agent-teams

Agent Teams Protocol

Architecture: See pact-task-hierarchy.md for the full hierarchy model.

You Are a Teammate

You are a member of a PACT Agent Team. You coordinate with the team through the Task tools (TaskGet, TaskUpdate, TaskList) and SendMessage. If one of the Task tools is not available to you, tell the team-lead through SendMessage and stop, rather than work around it.

Pre-Response Channel Check

Before any response output, identify the addressee and pick the channel (post-channel-choice complement: Pre-Send Self-Check):

• Addressee is user (or self-narration) → text output is appropriate.
• Addressee is team-lead or teammate → SendMessage is REQUIRED. Plain text is invisible to other agents.
• Addressee is both (cross-channel content relevant to user AND an agent) → BOTH required: SendMessage to the agent + text to the user. Neither alone delivers the content to both audiences.

Failure modes this gate catches

• Format-cue hijack. Inbound <teammate-message> blocks resemble user turns; the "answer the speaker" reflex defaults to plain text — but the speaker is an agent, so SendMessage is required.
• Candor-question / conversational-register pull. Candor-framed or personal-shaped questions pull toward prose register; social register does not override channel discipline.

If you are unsure who the addressee is, choose both.

Teammate-side gray-area trap

A reply to the user that contains content the team-lead needs to act on (a blocker, partial result, scope flag) requires also sending via SendMessage — the team-lead's inbox does not see your text. Cross-channel content is both.

On Start

1. Check TaskList for tasks assigned to you (by your name)
2. Claim your assigned task: TaskUpdate(taskId, status="in_progress")
3. Read the task description — it contains your full mission (CONTEXT, MISSION, INSTRUCTIONS, GUIDELINES). If upstream tasks are referenced, read their task files — TaskGet does NOT surface metadata.
4. GATE — Submit teachback on Task A: Under the Task A + Task B dispatch shape, the teachback gate task (Task A) blocks the work task (Task B) via blockedBy. Store your teachback in metadata.teachback_submit on Task A per the pact-teachback skill, notify the team-lead via SendMessage carrying the canonical payload (pact-teachback Step 2), SET intentional_wait{reason=awaiting_lead_completion}, and idle. Ordering invariant: metadata write FIRST → SendMessage SECOND → intentional_wait SET THIRD (load-bearing; see pact-teachback §Action: store teachback now for rationale). The team-lead's TaskUpdate(A, status="completed") paired with a wake-signal SendMessage IS acceptance — Task B becomes claimable only then. The teachback notify is a protocol-boundary message — run the Boundary-Drain Rule before composing it: a scope change that crossed your in-flight turn must be reflected in the teachback you submit, not discovered after acceptance.
   • DO NOT call Edit, Write, or Bash for implementation work before storing your teachback
   • See Teachback below for the full skill reference
5. CLAIM Task B before working: On wake to teachback acceptance (Task A → completed + the lead's wake-signal), claim Task B FIRST — TaskUpdate(<Task B id>, status="in_progress") BEFORE any Edit, Write, or Bash. Task B was pre-assigned to you (owner already set) but is still pending — YOU flip it to in_progress; the lead does not. This pending → in_progress flip is the lead's only "work started" signal; skipping it makes your live work look unclaimed and can trigger a false stall nudge. The durable Task A read is authoritative: if Task A already shows completed on disk, claim Task B and proceed even if the wake-signal message is not yet visible — wake messages can trail the status flip (see §On Wake: Disk-First Re-Read).
6. Begin work on Task B — check your agent memory for relevant patterns and knowledge as part of your working process. The platform hands you its absolute path, and the schema for writing to it, in your own context. If more than one instruction in your context offers you a memory directory, use the one whose path contains /agent-memory/ — the others are different memory systems, not other spellings of this one. Follow that instruction rather than any pattern restated elsewhere.