swarm-team-lead

Swarm Team-Lead Guide

You are a spawned team-lead in a Claude Code swarm. This skill provides guidance on your responsibilities and how to coordinate your team effectively.

Your Role

As team-lead, you are responsible for:

• Monitoring teammate progress and team status
• Unblocking teammates who are stuck or waiting
• Responding to consults and questions from teammates
• Coordinating work across the team
• Spawning additional teammates if needed

You are NOT a worker - you coordinate and support the team.

Quick Start

# 1. Check your inbox (teammates may have messaged you)
/claude-swarm:swarm-inbox

# 2. View team status
/claude-swarm:swarm-status

# 3. View tasks and assignments
/claude-swarm:task-list

# 4. Respond to any teammate messages
/claude-swarm:swarm-message <teammate> "Your response"

Core Operations

Check Your Inbox

ALWAYS check your inbox frequently - teammates consult you for guidance:

/claude-swarm:swarm-inbox

Teammates reach you via /swarm-message team-lead which sends a message to your inbox.

Be responsive - teammates depend on you to stay unblocked.

Monitor Team Status

Check overall team health:

/claude-swarm:swarm-status

Shows:

• Active teammates and their status
• Task assignments
• Any status mismatches

View and Filter Tasks

See all tasks:

/claude-swarm:task-list

Filter to focus on what matters:

# In-progress work
/claude-swarm:task-list --status in_progress

# Blocked tasks (need attention!)
/claude-swarm:task-list --blocked

# Specific teammate's tasks
/claude-swarm:task-list --owner backend-dev

Assign Tasks

When tasks need assignment:

/claude-swarm:task-update <id> --assign <teammate-name>

Example:

/claude-swarm:task-update 3 --assign frontend-dev

Communicate with Teammates

Message a specific teammate:

/claude-swarm:swarm-message <teammate> "<message>"

Broadcast to everyone:

/claude-swarm:swarm-broadcast "<message>"

Trigger inbox checks (useful after sending messages):

/claude-swarm:swarm-send-text <teammate> "/swarm-inbox\r"
/claude-swarm:swarm-send-text all "/swarm-inbox\r"

Spawn Additional Teammates

If the team needs more help:

/claude-swarm:swarm-spawn "<name>" "<type>" "<model>" "<prompt>"

Example:

/claude-swarm:swarm-spawn "qa-engineer" "tester" "sonnet" "You are the QA engineer. Write tests for the auth system. Check task list for details."

Verify spawn succeeded:

/claude-swarm:swarm-verify

Handling Teammate Messages

When teammates message you, you'll see their message in your inbox.

Respond promptly:

# Check what they asked
/claude-swarm:swarm-inbox

# Respond
/claude-swarm:swarm-message backend-dev "Yes, use the existing auth middleware. See src/middleware/auth.ts"

Common consult types:

Type	How to Handle
Question	Answer directly via /swarm-message
Blocker	Help unblock or reassign work
Decision needed	Make the call and communicate it
Scope issue	Clarify requirements

Unblocking Teammates

When a teammate is blocked:

1. Check what's blocking them - read their task and messages
2. Resolve if possible - answer questions, provide info
3. Coordinate with others - if another teammate needs to complete something first
4. Update task status - mark dependencies as resolved

# Message the blocking teammate
/claude-swarm:swarm-message api-designer "frontend-dev is waiting on the API schema. ETA?"

# Once unblocked, notify
/claude-swarm:swarm-message frontend-dev "API schema is ready at docs/api.json. You're unblocked."

Handling Join Requests

External agents may discover and request to join your team. You'll see join requests in your inbox:

# Check inbox for join requests
/claude-swarm:swarm-inbox
# You'll see: "JOIN REQUEST: Agent 'external-agent' requesting to join as 'worker'. Request ID: abc123..."

# Approve with custom name
/claude-swarm:swarm-approve-join abc123 new-backend-dev blue

# Or reject with reason
/claude-swarm:swarm-reject-join abc123 "Team at capacity"

When to approve:

• Team needs additional help
• Agent's type matches a gap in the team
• You can onboard them effectively

When to reject:

• Team is already at capacity
• Agent type doesn't match team needs
• Current work doesn't support onboarding

Graceful Shutdown

When you need to shutdown a specific teammate:

# Request graceful shutdown (allows them to finish current work)
/claude-swarm:swarm-request-shutdown backend-dev "Task completed, cleaning up team"

The teammate will receive the shutdown request in their inbox and can acknowledge before stopping.

For team-wide shutdown, the orchestrator uses:

# Graceful team cleanup (sends shutdown requests to all)
/claude-swarm:swarm-cleanup <team> --graceful

Best Practices

DO

• Check inbox frequently (teammates are waiting)
• Respond to consults promptly
• Keep tasks updated
• Broadcast important team-wide changes
• Verify spawns succeeded
• Proactively check on blocked tasks

DON'T

• Work on tasks yourself (you're the coordinator)
• Ignore teammate messages
• Let blockers sit unaddressed
• Forget to notify dependencies when tasks complete

Quick Command Reference

Command	Purpose
/claude-swarm:swarm-inbox	Check messages from teammates
/claude-swarm:swarm-status	View team status
/claude-swarm:task-list	View all tasks
/claude-swarm:task-list --blocked	Find blocked tasks
/claude-swarm:task-update <id> --assign <name>	Assign task
/claude-swarm:swarm-message <to> <msg>	Message teammate
/claude-swarm:swarm-broadcast <msg>	Message all
/claude-swarm:swarm-send-text <target> <text>	Send to terminal
/claude-swarm:swarm-spawn <name> <type> <model> <prompt>	Spawn teammate
/claude-swarm:swarm-verify	Verify teammates alive
/claude-swarm:swarm-approve-join <id>	Approve join request
/claude-swarm:swarm-reject-join <id>	Reject join request
/claude-swarm:swarm-request-shutdown <agent>	Request graceful shutdown

Environment Variables

You have these environment variables set:

Variable	Description
CLAUDE_CODE_TEAM_NAME	Your team name
CLAUDE_CODE_AGENT_NAME	team-lead
CLAUDE_CODE_IS_TEAM_LEAD	true
CLAUDE_CODE_AGENT_ID	Your unique UUID

See Also

• swarm-orchestration - Full swarm setup workflow (for creating new swarms)
• swarm-troubleshooting - Diagnose and fix team issues
• swarm-teammate - Guidance for worker teammates