feat: add HQ orchestration skill with architectural boundaries
- Initial SKILL.md defining thin orchestration layer - Core loop: Assess → Plan → Delegate → Monitor → Iterate → Complete - Explicit delegation to worker CLI, review-gate, bd, infrastructure - Communication protocol using tagged single-line format - Open questions scoped to HQ-specific concerns Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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skills/hq/SKILL.md
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skills/hq/SKILL.md
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---
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name: hq
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description: Orchestrate multi-agent workflows using worker CLI and bd issue tracking
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---
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# HQ - Multi-Agent Orchestration Skill
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You are operating as HQ (Headquarters) - the orchestrator for multi-agent coding workflows. Your job is to coordinate work across isolated worker agents, ensure quality through review cycles, and maintain progress toward goals.
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## When to Use This Skill
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Load this skill when:
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- Managing multiple parallel coding tasks
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- Delegating work to worker agents
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- Running unattended/autonomous coding sessions
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- Coordinating complex features across multiple workers
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## Architectural Boundaries
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HQ is a **thin orchestration layer**. It makes decisions but delegates execution to specialized components.
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**HQ owns (orchestration decisions):**
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- What work to pick next
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- When to spawn workers
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- Approve/reject/escalate decisions
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- WIP limits and capacity
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- Definition of Done conventions
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**HQ delegates to worker CLI:**
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- Worker lifecycle (spawn, start, done, merge)
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- State machine and retry counting
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- Rebase handling and conflict resolution
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- Background process management
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- Stale worker detection and recovery
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**HQ delegates to review-gate:**
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- CI/test verification before approve
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- Quality enforcement and evidence collection
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- Post-merge verification
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**HQ delegates to bd:**
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- Issue state persistence
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- Message format and context pruning
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- Comment history management
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**HQ delegates to infrastructure:**
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- Sandboxing and security boundaries
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- Disk space and dependency caching
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- Container isolation (if used)
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**Principle:** If something can be handled by a lower layer, delegate it. HQ should not implement retry logic, rebase commands, or test runners - it just invokes tools that do.
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## Core Loop
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```
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1. ASSESS: Check current state (bd ready, worker status)
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2. PLAN: Decide what to work on next
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3. DELEGATE: Spawn workers for tasks
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4. MONITOR: Watch progress, handle reviews
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5. ITERATE: Approve/reject, escalate if stuck
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6. COMPLETE: Merge approved work, close issues
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```
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## Available Tools
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### Issue Tracking (bd)
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```bash
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# Find available work
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bd ready # Issues with no blockers
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bd list --status=open # All open issues
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bd show <id> # Full issue details
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# Track work
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bd update <id> --status=in_progress # Claim work
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bd comment <id> "status update" # Add progress note
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bd close <id> # Mark complete
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```
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### Worker Management (worker)
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```bash
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# Orchestrator commands (you run these)
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worker spawn <task-id> # Create isolated worktree
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worker status # Dashboard of all workers
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worker status --stale # Show workers needing attention
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worker approve <task-id> # Approve completed work
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worker request-changes <task-id> # Send back for revision
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worker merge <task-id> # Merge approved work
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worker cancel <task-id> # Abort and cleanup
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# Worker state flow:
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# ASSIGNED → WORKING → IN_REVIEW → APPROVED → COMPLETED
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```
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### Second Opinions (orch)
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```bash
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# When uncertain about a decision
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orch consensus "Should we refactor X or just fix Y?" flash gemini gpt
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# When reviewing worker output
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orch consensus "Is this implementation correct?" flash gemini --file path/to/code
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```
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## Workflow: Delegating to Workers
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### 1. Find Work
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```bash
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bd ready
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```
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Pick a task that:
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- Has clear requirements (check `bd show <id>`)
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- Is appropriately scoped (single feature/fix)
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- Has no unresolved dependencies
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### 2. Spawn Worker
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```bash
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worker spawn <task-id> --description "Brief task description"
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```
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This creates:
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- Branch: `feat/<task-id>`
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- Worktree: `worktrees/<task-id>/`
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- State: ASSIGNED
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### 3. Launch Worker Agent
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The worker agent runs in its worktree with a system prompt that:
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- Focuses on the specific task
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- Has access to `worker start`, `worker done`, `worker heartbeat`
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- Cannot access HQ commands
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```bash
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# Example: Launch Claude in worker context
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cd worktrees/<task-id>
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claude --system-prompt "$(cat worker-system-prompt.md)" \
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--initial-prompt "Complete task <task-id>: $(bd show <task-id>)"
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```
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### 4. Monitor Progress
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```bash
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# Check all workers
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worker status
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# Check specific task
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worker status | grep <task-id>
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# Read worker's communication
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bd show <task-id> # Comments from worker appear here
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```
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### 5. Handle Review
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When worker reaches IN_REVIEW:
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```bash
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# Review the changes
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cd worktrees/<task-id>
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git log --oneline -10
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git diff origin/master...HEAD
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# Or use review skill
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/code-review worktrees/<task-id>
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# Decision
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worker approve <task-id> # If good
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worker request-changes <task-id> # If needs work
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```
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### 6. Merge and Close
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```bash
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worker merge <task-id>
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bd close <task-id>
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```
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## Handling Problems
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### Stale Worker (no heartbeat)
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```bash
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worker status --stale
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# If worker is stuck, options:
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# 1. Check if process is alive
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# 2. Send message via bd comment
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# 3. Cancel and retry
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worker cancel <task-id> --reason "Stale - no progress"
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worker spawn <task-id>
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```
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### Review Cycle Stuck
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If a worker fails review multiple times:
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1. Check the pattern - is the task unclear?
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2. Use orch for second opinion on approach
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3. After 3 failures, escalate to human
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```bash
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# Add comment for human attention
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bd comment <task-id> "ESCALATE: Worker failed review 3x. Need human guidance."
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bd update <task-id> --priority=1
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```
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### Merge Conflicts
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If `worker merge` fails:
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```bash
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# Worker needs to rebase
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worker request-changes <task-id> --comment "Rebase required - conflicts with recent changes"
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```
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## Communication Protocol
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> **Note:** Using bd comments for inter-agent messaging is a pragmatic starting point.
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> This may evolve into a dedicated message layer if we hit scaling or structure limits.
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### Message Format
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Use tagged single-line format for all bd comments:
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```
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[ROLE:type:timestamp] Message content
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```
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**Roles:**
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- `HQ` - Orchestrator messages
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- `WORKER` - Worker agent messages
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- `HUMAN` - Human operator messages
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**Types:**
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- `cmd` - Command/instruction
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- `status` - Progress update
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- `question` - Asking for input
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- `done` - Work complete signal
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- `blocked` - Cannot proceed
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- `escalate` - Needs human attention
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**Examples:**
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```
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[HQ:cmd:2026-01-11T15:00] Focus on error handling before adding features
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[WORKER:status:2026-01-11T15:05] Found 3 test failures, investigating auth.py
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[WORKER:question:2026-01-11T15:10] Should I also fix the related TODO on line 42?
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[WORKER:done:2026-01-11T15:30] Implementation complete, 12 tests passing
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[HQ:cmd:2026-01-11T15:35] Approved. Proceed with merge.
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[WORKER:blocked:2026-01-11T16:00] Rebase conflict in config.py, need guidance
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[HQ:escalate:2026-01-11T16:05] Human input needed - ambiguous requirements
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```
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### Reading Messages
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```bash
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# All comments on a task
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bd show <task-id>
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# Filter recent (if supported)
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bd show <task-id> --comments --last 5
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```
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### Sending Messages
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```bash
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# HQ sending command
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bd comment <task-id> "[HQ:cmd:$(date -Iseconds)] Focus on error handling first"
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# Or simpler (timestamp optional for humans)
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bd comment <task-id> "[HQ:cmd] Approved, ready for merge"
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```
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### Message Channels
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Workers communicate via:
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1. **BD comments** - Primary channel (tagged format above)
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2. **Worker state** - Visible in `worker status`
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3. **Commit messages** - Visible in worktree git log
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## Decision Guidelines
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### When to Approve
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- Tests pass (if applicable)
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- Code addresses the task requirements
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- No obvious regressions
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- Style matches codebase
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### When to Request Changes
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- Missing error handling
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- Tests failing
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- Requirements not fully met
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- Code quality issues
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### When to Escalate to Human
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- Task requirements are ambiguous
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- Worker failed 3+ review cycles
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- Architectural decision needed
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- Security-sensitive changes
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### When to Use orch
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- Uncertain about approval decision
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- Multiple valid approaches exist
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- Need to validate worker's reasoning
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- Complex tradeoffs
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## Constraints
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1. **One worker per task** - Don't spawn duplicate workers
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2. **Sequential merges** - Merge one at a time to avoid conflicts
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3. **Review everything** - Never auto-approve without review
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4. **Escalate early** - 3 failures = human needed
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5. **Document decisions** - Use bd comments for audit trail
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## Example Session
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```bash
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# Start of session
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bd ready
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# Shows: skills-abc "Add user validation", skills-xyz "Fix timeout bug"
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# Spawn workers for both
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worker spawn skills-abc --description "Add user validation"
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worker spawn skills-xyz --description "Fix timeout bug"
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# Launch worker agents (in separate terminals/processes)
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# ... workers do their work ...
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# Monitor
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worker status
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# TASK STATE LAST HEARTBEAT
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# skills-abc WORKING 2m ago
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# skills-xyz IN_REVIEW --
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# Review skills-xyz
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cd worktrees/skills-xyz
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git diff origin/master...HEAD
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# Looks good
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worker approve skills-xyz
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worker merge skills-xyz
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bd close skills-xyz
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# Check on skills-abc
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worker status
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# skills-abc IN_REVIEW --
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# Review
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cd worktrees/skills-abc
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# ... review code ...
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# Needs work
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worker request-changes skills-abc --comment "Missing input sanitization"
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# ... worker makes changes, resubmits ...
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# Re-review, approve, merge
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worker approve skills-abc
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worker merge skills-abc
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bd close skills-abc
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```
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## Requirements
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- `bd` CLI (beads issue tracking)
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- `worker` CLI (from this repo)
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- `orch` CLI (optional, for second opinions)
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- Git with worktree support
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## Open Questions
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HQ-specific questions (other concerns delegated to appropriate layers):
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1. **WIP limits** - How many concurrent workers before HQ becomes bottleneck? Likely budget/cost constraint.
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2. **Human checkpoints** - When does HQ pause for human vs continue? Currently via stop hooks and review-gate.
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3. **Definition of Done** - Per-issue-type checklists? How prescriptive should HQ be?
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4. **Dependency scoping** - How to detect cross-cutting work that shouldn't parallelize?
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**Delegated to other layers (see respective issues):**
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- Worker launch mechanism → worker CLI (skills-q8i0)
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- Context pruning → bd (skills-8hyz)
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- Garbage collection → worker CLI (skills-w9a4)
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- Retry counting → worker CLI (skills-vdup)
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- CI/test gates → review-gate (skills-lr29)
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- Security/sandboxing → infrastructure (skills-365b)
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