clanker-agent/packages/clanker-teams/README.md

clanker-teams 🚀

clanker-teams turns your single clanker agent into a coordinated software engineering team. It allows you to spawn multiple "Teammate" agents in separate terminal panes that work autonomously, communicate with each other, and manage a shared task board-all mediated through tmux, Zellij, iTerm2, or WezTerm.

🖥️ clanker-teams in Action

iTerm2	tmux	Zellij

Also works with WezTerm (cross-platform support)

🛠 Installation

Open your clanker terminal and type:

clanker install npm:clanker-teams

🚀 Quick Start

# 1. Start a team (inside tmux, Zellij, or iTerm2)
"Create a team named 'my-team' using 'gpt-4o'"

# 2. Spawn teammates
"Spawn 'security-bot' to scan for vulnerabilities"
"Spawn 'frontend-dev' using 'haiku' for quick iterations"

# 3. Create and assign tasks
"Create a task for security-bot: 'Audit auth endpoints'"

# 4. Review and approve work
"List all tasks and approve any pending plans"

🌟 What can it do?

Core Features

• Spawn Specialists: Create agents like "Security Expert" or "Frontend Pro" to handle sub-tasks in parallel.
• Shared Task Board: Keep everyone on the same page with a persistent list of tasks and their status.
• Agent Messaging: Agents can send direct messages to each other and to you (the Team Lead) to report progress.
• Autonomous Work: Teammates automatically "wake up," read their instructions, and poll their inboxes for new work while idle.
• Beautiful UI: Optimized vertical splits in tmux with clear labels so you always know who is doing what.

Advanced Features

• Isolated OS Windows: Launch teammates in true separate OS windows instead of panes.
• Persistent Window Titles: Windows are automatically titled [team-name]: [agent-name] for easy identification in your window manager.
• Plan Approval Mode: Require teammates to submit their implementation plans for your approval before they touch any code.
• Broadcast Messaging: Send a message to the entire team at once for global coordination and announcements.
• Quality Gate Hooks: Automated shell scripts run when tasks are completed (e.g., to run tests or linting).
• Thinking Level Control: Set per-teammate thinking levels (off, minimal, low, medium, high) to balance speed vs. reasoning depth.

💬 Key Examples

1. Start a Team

You: "Create a team named 'my-app-audit' for reviewing the codebase."

Set a default model for the whole team:

You: "Create a team named 'Research' and use 'gpt-4o' for everyone."

Start a team in "Separate Windows" mode:

You: "Create a team named 'Dev' and open everyone in separate windows." (Supported in iTerm2 and WezTerm only)

2. Spawn Teammate with Custom Settings

You: "Spawn a teammate named 'security-bot' in the current folder. Tell them to scan for hardcoded API keys."

Spawn a specific teammate in a separate window:

You: "Spawn 'researcher' in a separate window."

Move the Team Lead to a separate window:

You: "Open the team lead in its own window." (Requires separate_windows mode enabled or iTerm2/WezTerm)

Use a different model:

You: "Spawn a teammate named 'speed-bot' using 'haiku' to quickly run some benchmarks."

Require plan approval:

You: "Spawn a teammate named 'refactor-bot' and require plan approval before they make any changes."

Customize model and thinking level:

You: "Spawn a teammate named 'architect-bot' using 'gpt-4o' with 'high' thinking level for deep reasoning."

Smart Model Resolution: When you specify a model name without a provider (e.g., gemini-2.5-flash), clanker-teams automatically:

• Queries available models from clanker --list-models
• Prioritizes OAuth/subscription providers (cheaper/free) over API-key providers:
  • google-gemini-cli (OAuth) is preferred over google (API key)
  • github-copilot, kimi-sub are preferred over their API-key equivalents
• Falls back to API-key providers if OAuth providers aren't available
• Constructs the correct --model provider/model:thinking command

Example: Specifying gemini-2.5-flash will automatically use google-gemini-cli/gemini-2.5-flash if available, saving API costs.

3. Assign Task & Get Approval

You: "Create a task for security-bot: 'Check the .env.example file for sensitive defaults' and set it to in_progress."

Teammates in planning mode will use task_submit_plan. As the lead, review their work:

You: "Review refactor-bot's plan for task 5. If it looks good, approve it. If not, reject it with feedback on the test coverage."

4. Broadcast to Team

You: "Broadcast to the entire team: 'The API endpoint has changed to /v2. Please update your work accordingly.'"

5. Shut Down Team

You: "We're done. Shut down the team and close the panes."

---

📚 Learn More

• Full Usage Guide - Detailed examples, hook system, best practices, and troubleshooting
• Tool Reference - Complete documentation of all tools and parameters

🪟 Terminal Requirements

To show multiple agents on one screen, clanker-teams requires a way to manage terminal panes. It supports tmux, Zellij, iTerm2, and WezTerm.

Option 1: tmux (Recommended)

Install tmux:

• macOS: brew install tmux
• Linux: sudo apt install tmux

How to run:

tmux  # Start tmux session
clanker   # Start clanker inside tmux

Option 2: Zellij

Simply start clanker inside a Zellij session. clanker-teams will detect it via the ZELLIJ environment variable and use zellij run to spawn teammates in new panes.

Option 3: iTerm2 (macOS)

If you are using iTerm2 on macOS and are not inside tmux or Zellij, clanker-teams can manage your team in two ways:

1. Panes (Default): Automatically split your current window into an optimized layout.
2. Windows: Create true separate OS windows for each agent.

It will name the panes or windows with the teammate's agent name for easy identification.

Option 4: WezTerm (macOS, Linux, Windows)

WezTerm is a GPU-accelerated, cross-platform terminal emulator written in Rust. Like iTerm2, it supports both Panes and Separate OS Windows.

Install WezTerm:

• macOS: brew install --cask wezterm
• Linux: See wezterm.org/installation
• Windows: Download from wezterm.org

How to run:

wezterm  # Start WezTerm
clanker       # Start clanker inside WezTerm

📜 Credits & Attribution

This project is a port of the excellent claude-code-teams-mcp by cs50victor.

We have adapted the original MCP coordination protocol to work natively as a clanker package, adding features like auto-starting teammates, balanced vertical UI layouts, automatic inbox polling, plan approval mode, broadcast messaging, and quality gate hooks.

📄 License

MIT