ClawTeam Multi-Agent Coordination

ClawTeam is a framework-agnostic CLI tool for coordinating multiple AI agents as a team. It provides file-based team management, inter-agent messaging, shared task tracking with dependency resolution, plan approval workflows, and terminal-based monitoring dashboards.

All operations are performed via the

clawteam

~/.clawteam/

Core Concepts

Teams — A named group of agents with one leader and zero or more workers. Created via

clawteam team spawn-team

Inbox — File-based message queue per agent.

inbox send

inbox broadcast

inbox receive

inbox peek

Tasks — Shared task board with statuses:

pending

in_progress

completed

blocked

--blocks

--blocked-by

Board — Terminal kanban dashboard.

board show

board overview

board live

board attach

Identity — Each agent has env vars (

CLAWTEAM_AGENT_ID

CLAWTEAM_AGENT_NAME

CLAWTEAM_AGENT_TYPE

CLAWTEAM_TEAM_NAME

clawteam spawn

Quick Start

Set Up a Team with Tasks

# Set identity for the current session
export CLAWTEAM_AGENT_ID="leader-001"
export CLAWTEAM_AGENT_NAME="leader"
export CLAWTEAM_AGENT_TYPE="leader"

# Create team
clawteam team spawn-team my-team -d "Project team" -n leader

# Create tasks
clawteam task create my-team "Design system" -o leader
clawteam task create my-team "Implement feature" -o worker1
clawteam task create my-team "Write tests" -o worker2

# View board
clawteam board show my-team

Spawn and Coordinate Agents

# Spawn workers — defaults: tmux backend, claude command, git worktree isolation, skip-permissions on
clawteam spawn --team my-team --agent-name worker1 --task "Implement the auth module"
clawteam spawn --team my-team --agent-name worker2 --task "Write unit tests"

# Or explicitly specify backend and command (positional args: [BACKEND] [COMMAND])
clawteam spawn tmux claude --team my-team --agent-name worker3 --task "Build API endpoints"
clawteam spawn subprocess claude --team my-team --agent-name worker4 --task "Run linting"

# Watch all agents working simultaneously (tiled tmux panes)
clawteam board attach my-team

# Send instructions
clawteam inbox send my-team worker1 "Start implementing the auth module"

# Monitor task board
clawteam board live my-team --interval 3

Spawn Defaults

Spawning agents uses sensible defaults — no flags needed for the common case:

tmux

clawteam spawn subprocess ...

claude

clawteam spawn tmux my-cmd ...

auto

--no-workspace

workspace=never

--no-skip-permissions

skip_permissions=false

Agents spawned with defaults get:

• Their own git worktree (isolated branch, no conflicts with other agents)
• Full tool permissions (

  --dangerously-skip-permissions

  ) so they can work autonomously
• A tmux window you can watch with

  board attach

Task Lifecycle

# Create with dependencies
clawteam task create my-team "Deploy" --blocked-by <impl-task-id>,<test-task-id>

# Update status
clawteam task update my-team <task-id> --status in_progress
clawteam task update my-team <task-id> --status completed  # auto-unblocks dependents

# Filter tasks
clawteam task list my-team --status blocked
clawteam task list my-team --owner worker1

Waiting for Sub-Agents

# Block until all tasks complete (no timeout)
clawteam task wait my-team

# With timeout and custom poll interval
clawteam task wait my-team --timeout 300 --poll-interval 10

# Monitor a specific agent's inbox instead of the leader
clawteam task wait my-team --agent coordinator

# JSON streaming output (NDJSON: progress + message events, then final result)
clawteam --json task wait my-team --timeout 600

Watching Agents Work

# Tile all agent tmux windows into one view (best way to observe)
clawteam board attach my-team

# Or attach to the tmux session manually and switch windows with Ctrl-b + number
tmux attach -t clawteam-my-team

Command Groups

team

spawn-team

discover

status

request-join

approve-join

cleanup

inbox

send

broadcast

receive

peek

watch

task

create

get

update

list

wait

board

show

overview

live

attach

serve

plan

submit

approve

reject

lifecycle

request-shutdown

approve-shutdown

idle

spawn

spawn [backend] [command]

identity

show

set

JSON Output

All commands support

--json

clawteam --json team discover
clawteam --json board show my-team
clawteam --json task list my-team --status pending

Combine with

jq

clawteam --json board show my-team | jq '.taskSummary'
clawteam --json task list my-team | jq '.[].subject'

Important Notes

• inbox receive

  consumes messages (deletes files). Use

  inbox peek

  for non-destructive reads.
• Task status

  blocked

  is auto-set when

  --blocked-by

  is specified at creation.
• Completing a task auto-unblocks any tasks that list it in

  blockedBy

  .

• clawteam spawn

  defaults to tmux backend with git worktree isolation and skip-permissions.
• All file writes use atomic tmp+rename to prevent data corruption.
• Identity env vars are set automatically when spawning via

  clawteam spawn

  .
• Use

  board attach <team>

  to watch all agents in a tiled tmux layout.

Additional Resources

Reference Files

For detailed command arguments, data models, and storage layout:

• references/cli-reference.md

  — Complete CLI reference with all commands, options, and data models

For step-by-step coordination workflows and common patterns:

• references/workflows.md

  — Multi-agent workflows: team setup, spawn coordination, join protocol, plan approval, graceful shutdown, monitoring patterns