SOP-004: Spawn and Manage Teammates

ID: SOP-004 | Version: 1.0 | Status: Current | Date: 2026-02-12

Fresh 🌱

Create specific teammates with tailored prompts, control their models, and manage their lifecycle during team execution.

Overview

While Claude often creates teammates automatically, you can explicitly spawn teammates with specific roles, models, and prompts for fine-grained control.

Prerequisites

• Agent teams enabled and working (SOP-002)
• Team already created (need a lead to spawn teammates)
• Clear understanding of teammate responsibilities

Decision Tree

Spawning Teammates

Basic Spawn (Automatic Count)

Tell Claude what you need:

Create an agent team to review this module. Give me reviewers for:
- Security issues
- Performance implications
- Test coverage

Claude decides number and models based on complexity.

Specify Teammate Count

Create an agent team with 4 teammates to refactor these microservices.

Specify Models

Spawn 3 teammates using Sonnet model for code review:
- One focusing on readability
- One checking security
- One validating performance

Available models:

• Sonnet (default, good balance)
• Opus (most capable, higher cost)
• Haiku (fastest, lower cost)

Detailed Spawn with Role Descriptions

Create 2 teammates with detailed prompts:
- Teammate 1: "You are a security expert. Review auth module for JWT handling, session management, and input validation."
- Teammate 2: "You are a performance specialist. Check for N+1 queries, inefficient algorithms, and caching opportunities."

With Plan Approval Requirement

Spawn an architect teammate to refactor the database layer.
Require plan approval before they make any changes.

Claude will:

1. Teammate creates plan
2. Sends to lead for review
3. Lead approves or rejects with feedback
4. Teammate revises if rejected
5. Implementation proceeds after approval

Managing Teammates

Message a Specific Teammate

Tell the security reviewer: "Pay special attention to cross-site request forgery vulnerabilities"

Claude will deliver message automatically to that teammate.

Broadcast to All Teammates

Broadcast to all teammates: "Update your findings doc with current progress"

Use sparingly - costs scale with team size.

Check Teammate Status

Show me what each teammate is currently working on

Or in-process mode:

• Shift+Up/Down to cycle through
• See their current task in status

Redirect a Teammate

Tell the researcher teammate to focus more on edge cases

Teammate will shift focus based on your guidance.

Interact Directly with Teammate

In-process mode:

1. Press Shift+Up/Down to select teammate
2. Press Enter to enter their session
3. Type message directly
4. Press Escape to stop their current turn
5. Press Escape again to exit their session

Split panes mode:

1. Click into teammate's pane
2. Type message directly
3. Click back to lead's pane

Shut Down a Teammate

Ask the researcher teammate to shut down

Teammate can approve gracefully or reject with explanation:

• Approve: Clean exit, resources freed
• Reject: Continues working with explanation

Graceful shutdown is better than force-killing.

Team Coordination

View Shared Task List

Show me the current task list

Or press Ctrl+T in in-process mode.

Shows:

• Task status (pending/in-progress/completed)
• Task ownership
• Dependencies between tasks
• Blockers and prerequisites

Assign Specific Task

Assign task #3 to the database teammate

Lead can explicitly assign, or teammates can self-claim available tasks.

Create New Task

Create a task: "Write integration tests for authentication module"

Claude adds to shared task list. Any available teammate can claim it.

Mark Task Complete

Mark task #5 as completed

Unblocks any dependent tasks automatically.

Monitoring and Steering

Check Progress Regularly

Give me a status update on all teammate work

Claude will:

• Show what each teammate completed
• What they're currently doing
• Any blockers or issues
• Estimate of time/effort remaining

Prevent Lead from Implementing

If lead starts doing work instead of delegating:

Wait for your teammates to complete their tasks before proceeding

Synthesize Findings

Collect findings from all teammates and synthesize into a summary document

Lead will:

• Gather all results
• Combine insights
• Identify conflicts/consensus
• Write comprehensive summary

Best Practices

Give Teammates Enough Context

Spawn a backend architect teammate with this prompt:
"Review the API layer in src/api/. We're using Express.js with
middleware-based auth. Focus on:
1. Scalability for 10K+ requests/sec
2. Latency optimization
3. Connection pooling strategy

Current bottleneck: database queries taking 200ms average.
Recent changes: added caching layer in Redis."

Size Tasks Appropriately

• Too small (< 10 min): Coordination overhead > benefit
• Too large (> 2 hrs): Risk of wasted effort without check-ins
• Just right (15-45 min): Discrete deliverables, check-ins possible

Aim for 5-6 tasks per teammate.

Start Teammates in Parallel

Create 3 teammates working on independent modules simultaneously

Better than sequential (faster feedback, parallel exploration).

Avoid File Conflicts

Each teammate owns different files:

Teammate 1: Frontend components (src/components/)
Teammate 2: Backend API (src/api/)
Teammate 3: Tests (src/__tests__/)

Don't have 2 teammates editing the same file.

Verification Checklist

✓ Teammates spawned successfully

• Claude confirms number created
• No "failed to spawn" errors
• Task list shows tasks
• Can see teammates in terminal

✓ Teammates have context

• They load project CLAUDE.md
• They understand their role
• They know what to work on
• They can communicate with each other

✓ Communication working

• Can message teammate directly
• Teammate receives and responds
• Can broadcast to group
• Messages appear in real-time

✓ Task assignment working

• Can see shared task list (Ctrl+T)
• Tasks show owner and status
• Can assign new tasks
• Dependencies resolve automatically

Troubleshooting

Q: "Permission denied" when spawning A:

1. Pre-approve operations in settings
2. Or use: claude --dangerously-skip-permissions
3. Or tell lead to approve each permission

Q: Teammate not receiving messages A:

1. Check teammate is running (Shift+Down cycles through)
2. Try direct message again
3. May have completed and left team - create new one

Q: Lead doing work instead of coordinating A: Tell lead: "Wait for teammates to complete their tasks before proceeding"

Q: Too many permissions prompts A: Pre-configure in settings.json:

{
  "mode": "bypassPermissions"
}

Q: Teammate got stuck on error A:

1. Check their status: cycle to them with Shift+Up/Down
2. Give them new instructions directly
3. Or spawn replacement teammate for that task

See Also

• SOP-005: Task Assignment
• SOP-003: Configure Display Modes
• Parallel Code Review Workflow
• Commands Reference