swarm

Swarm

On Codex, read the platform mapping, including its per-skill notes, before following this skill.

On GitHub Copilot, read the platform mapping, including its per-skill notes, before following this skill.

Fan out N parallel workers. They may cover separate slices, race the same brief, or mix both. The parent waits, aggregates, and returns one report.

Start

Open a todolist with one entry per phase before launching anything.

1. Frame
2. Fan out
3. Aggregate
4. Report

Phase A: Frame

1. State the done predicate and the artifact or report the swarm must return.
2. Choose the shape. Partition into slices, race N workers on identical briefs, or mix both. For a race or mixed shape, declare first pass, rank all, or best-of before spawning.
3. Set N from the user or derive it from the shape. N is total workers, not the number that run at once.
4. Pick the worker model from the swarm workers line in pstack-models.md. If the sheet or that line is missing, use the default in Models. For auto or inherit-parent, omit model so the workers run on the parent model. If the Agent tool rejects a slug, use the default and say so. If it rejects the default, use the closest valid slug of the same family from its error message. For a model race, name each arm's model up front.
5. Give each worker its own writable output when it writes. When workers verify or measure commits, each brief names the exact SHAs. A measurement brief also names the method (sample count, what one sample is, order). The worker records both in its result.

Phase B: Fan out

Spawn all N workers in one message with subagent_type: "patina-reader" for a worker whose brief writes nothing (coverage, review, exploration) and subagent_type: "general-purpose" for a worker that writes to its own worktree or output directory, run_in_background: true, and the step 4 model, left unset for auto or inherit-parent. Claude Code subagents all run on this machine, so isolation comes from the worktree or output directory assigned in Phase A, not from a remote environment.

When a worker must start from a non-default branch, check that branch out in the worker's own worktree and name the worktree path in its brief.

Every brief stands alone. Include the goal, scope, exact slice or race arm, how to verify, and what to report. Reports use PASS, ISSUES, or BLOCKED with evidence. A worker that can prove a defect reports ISSUES and lists every issue it can prove, not only the first.

If a worker drops out, proceed with N-1 and note it.

Phase C: Aggregate

Read the terminal results. Drop a result that does not record the SHAs and method its brief names, and respawn that worker once. After a second miss, record a gap. A gap does not count as a pass. For coverage, every required slice needs a result. For a race, apply the selection rule declared up front. Use first pass, rank all, or best-of. Do not paste raw worker dumps.

Keep a compact result table, one-line evidenced issues, and explicit gaps or dropouts.

Phase D: Report

Return one consolidated in-chat report with the table, issue one-liners, gaps or dropouts, and the race rule when used.

Models

Role defaults, stamped from plugins/pstack/models.json (edit there, rerun tools/generate.mjs). A matching role line in the pstack-models.md override sheet overrides each at runtime; /setup-pstack writes it and lists its path per runtime.

• swarm workers: opus

Reasoning effort

A role value in the override sheet may name a reasoning effort after its model, as in opus @xhigh. Levels on Claude Code: low, medium, high, xhigh, max. Which ones apply depends on the model. A value without @ takes the sheet's default effort line, a level or session, and session when the sheet has no such line. session sets no effort, so the dispatch is the usual one. Strip the suffix before reading the model: inherit-parent or auto still omits model at every level, and a model name is passed as model. On Claude Code, a level picks the effort agent from the subagent_type you would otherwise use. patina-agent becomes subagent_type: "patina-agent-<level>". patina-reader becomes subagent_type: "patina-reader-<level>". general-purpose, or no subagent_type, becomes subagent_type: "effort-<level>". The effort agents set only effort, so the model you pass still decides the model. On Codex, pass the level as spawn_agent's reasoning_effort and keep the usual instructions.