git:20260729.c85775c to git:20260729.9e6e064

---

name: parallel-orchestrator

description: Use to actually launch multiple developer agents in parallel via the subagent tool (Task/Agent), given a sprint plan and board. Triggers from /app-build or when the tech-manager says "spawn the pod". Encapsulates the rules for safe concurrent agent execution.

---

# Parallel orchestrator

You launch IC agents concurrently. This skill exists because parallel agent launches need rules — without them, agents stomp each other.

## When to use

Called from `/app-build` or by the tech-manager once `docs/31-board.md` has tickets in `todo` ready to start.

## Procedure

0. **Doctor gate.** Run the `board-doctor` skill first. If it exits non-zero, spawn nobody — a

parallel launch against an incoherent board multiplies the damage across every track at once.

0a. **Budget gate.** The loop has no economic brake other than this one:

```bash

node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/round-journal.mjs" check

```

Exit `1` means a ceiling is reached: **stop the loop**, print the line verbatim, and report what

is unfinished. Do not start a round you cannot finish. Ceilings come from `--max-rounds` /

`--max-spawns` / `--max-retries` / `--max-spend-usd`, or `APP_TEAM_MAX_*` in the environment.

Raising one is a decision the user makes, not one you make to keep going.

1. **Read the board.** Find tickets where `Status = todo` and all `Depends on` IDs are **merged**

(`qa` or `done`) — a dependency is satisfied once its code is on the integration branch, not once

QA has signed it off. Requiring `done` stalls every dependent behind a QA pass.

Read it from the log rather than the table where one exists —

`node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/board.mjs" show --json` gives you `status` and `dependsOn`

per ticket already derived.

Note what this readiness rule *cannot* express: a ticket behind a `blocked` dependency is not

ready and never will be, but it is also never reported. That is the doctor's `stranded` check,

and it is why step 0 exists.

1a. **Claim before you spawn.** One append per ticket, and it is also the readiness check you cannot

forget to run:

```bash

node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/board.mjs" move APP-001 claimed --by ios-developer

```

`claimed` is **refused** on a ticket whose dependency has never merged. That refusal is the

answer, not an obstacle: spawn nobody for that ticket and say why in the standup. Claiming before

the spawn also means the board says who is working on what *while* they work — the window in

which two orchestrators could both hand out the same ticket closes here.

2. **Group by owner.** One agent invocation per owner, batched. iOS dev gets all their ready tickets in one prompt; same for Android; same for backend.

2a. **Create one worktree per writing agent, then let the gate check you** (`agent-isolation`):

```bash

git worktree add .agent-wt/APP-001 -b feat/APP-001-short-slug

sh "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/spawn-gate.sh" APP-001 APP-002 APP-003

```

The gate is the last thing you run before the launch message, and **its exit code decides

whether the launch happens**:

- `0 GO` → spawn. With one ticket it prints `SERIALIZED` instead — that is the legal one-writer

path, and it holds only while the writer stays alone. Say so in the standup.

- `1 REFUSED` → **spawn nobody.** Two or more writers, at least one with no worktree. It names

the missing IDs and prints the `git worktree add` line for each. Create them and re-run, or

serialize the round.

- `2 CANNOT EVALUATE` → not a git repo, so worktrees are unavailable. Serialize; never treat a

2 as a go-ahead.

**Why this is a script and not a paragraph.** The paragraph existed. It had existed since v1.4.0,

backed by a measured collision — a commit containing another ticket's half-written files, ~50% of

an agent's budget burned redoing work it had already done, add/add conflicts on all 8 files

(`docs/research/2026-07-29-dry-run-parallel-agent-collision.md`). Then, hours after spending a day

hardening that paragraph, the orchestrator spawned two writers into one checkout anyway; one ran

`git stash` + `git reset` and 22 files of the other's work vanished, recoverable only by luck

(DR4-027). Knowing a rule, having written it, and having defended it does not make you apply it.

Run the gate.

2a-i. **Destructive commands are banned for any agent that shares a tree** — and you tell every

agent so in its prompt. Never, repo-wide:

```

git reset (--hard or otherwise) git stash git checkout -- .

git clean git add -A / git add . / git commit -a

```

Stage by explicit path (`agent-isolation` Rule 2). If you need a clean tree to run a check,

**copy the repo to a temp dir and dirty that instead** — `cp -R` or `git worktree add` a scratch

worktree. Those commands are all unrecoverable from inside your run, and one of them is exactly

how DR4-027 lost 22 files. If HEAD moved under you, stop and report (`agent-isolation` Rule 5).

2b. **Check for file overlap, not just feature independence.** The sprint plan judges tickets

independent by *feature*. Two "independent" tickets that touch the same files still produce a

total merge conflict. Before launching a batch, list the files each ticket is likely to touch

(from the impl spec and the ticket's own description). Any ticket pair sharing a file is

**serialized**, not parallelised.

3. **Launch in a single message.** Use the subagent tool (`Task`/`Agent`) with multiple invocations in the same assistant message so they run concurrently. This is the critical step — sequential launches give up the parallelism we just earned.

Each agent's prompt must name **its worktree path** as the project root — never the repo root.

4. **Each agent prompt** includes:

- The ticket ID(s)

- The board entry verbatim

- Pointers to PRD section, impl spec, design tokens

- The expected output contract (`DONE: APP-NNN ...` or `BLOCKED: APP-NNN ...`)

- Reminder: do not edit specs; flag blockers and stop

5. **Stream the reviews — do not wait for the whole batch.** As each developer Task returns

`DONE: APP-NNN`, **verify the claim before you act on it**:

```bash

```

Reviewers run in parallel with each other **and** with still-running developers. Waiting for the

slowest dev before any review starts wastes wall-clock time.

6. **Merge gate.** Only `APPROVED` PRs go to tech-manager for merge → board moves `review → qa`. `REQUEST CHANGES` re-spawns the original developer with the reviewer's notes. The review-cycle cap (2 cycles, per `/app-build` step 4) is enforced by the orchestrator — past it, surface to the user.

6a. **Escalate the model on a retry.** The first attempt runs the role's default tier (its agent

file's `model:`). A re-spawn after `REQUEST CHANGES` runs **one tier up**, capped at the top:

```

haiku → sonnet → opus → opus

```

Pass the tier explicitly on the re-spawn (the subagent tool's `model` parameter, where the

harness has one; otherwise say so in the prompt and note it in the standup). A ticket that failed

review is by definition harder than it looked — this is the cheapest place in the loop to put

effort where the evidence already says it is needed. A `rejected` verify-done retry is *not* an

escalation: nothing was reviewed, so nothing said the work was hard.

7. **Journal the round.** One line, at the end of every round, after the standup:

```bash

node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/round-journal.mjs" append --round N \

--tickets APP-001,APP-002 --verdicts approved=1,changes=1 \

--spawns 4 --retries 1 --refusals 0 --wall-clock-sec 900

```

The event log records what happened to **tickets**; this records what happened to the **loop**.

Only the first was answerable before, so "is this run converging or thrashing?" had no data

behind it. Omit `--spend-usd` when the harness cannot report token cost — the field stays `null`

and every reader says "not measurable here" rather than printing a number nobody measured.

## Warm managers (optional — the portable default is respawn)

Where the harness supports named agents plus `SendMessage`, `tech-manager` and `tech-lead` may

**persist across a sprint** instead of being respawned cold each round: the manager keeps the

round's context, and the mid-sprint Q&A round becomes a message rather than a fresh spawn.

The condition that makes this safe, and the only one: **all durable state stays in files** — the

event log, the ledger, the board, the fragments, this journal. A warm manager is a cache, never a

source. Nothing may exist only in a warm agent's context, so the two modes are interchangeable

mid-sprint: kill a warm manager and the next cold respawn reads the same files and continues.

If the harness has no named agents, do nothing — respawn per round is the portable baseline and is

what every other step here assumes.

## Anti-patterns

- **Sequential launches when parallel is safe.** If APP-001 and APP-002 don't conflict, never launch them back-to-back in different messages.

- **Parallel launches when serial is required.** If two tickets touch the same module, serialize them — let the second pick up the first's commit.

- **Forgetting to write the result back to the board.** The event log is the only memory across

agent invocations.

- **Editing `docs/31-board.md` to record a result.** It is generated from the log. The edit survives

until the next append, is read by nothing, and the work it recorded disappears with it.

- **Retrying past a refusal.** Exit 1 from `board.mjs` is a rule catching something. Read the reason

it printed and fix that, rather than reaching for the file underneath it.

- **Believing a `DONE` you didn't verify.** The branch may not exist, may carry no commits, and the

"tests all green" line is a claim by the same agent that wrote the code.

- **Spawning against a board you didn't check.** One bad dependency edge silently strands a whole

track, and the loop will still report the sprint complete.

- **Spawning without running `spawn-gate.sh`.** Isolation you remembered is not isolation you

checked, and the one operator best placed to remember it is the one who has already forgotten.

- **Re-spawning after `REQUEST CHANGES` at the same tier.** The default tier is the one that just

failed a review on this exact ticket.

## Worked example

Board ready state:

```

APP-001 todo ios-developer

APP-002 todo android-developer

APP-003 todo backend-developer

APP-004 todo ios-developer (depends on APP-001)

```

Correct launch:

```

[same message]

Agent(ios-developer, "Work APP-001, see board row + spec links ...")

Agent(android-developer, "Work APP-002 ...")

Agent(backend-developer, "Work APP-003 ...")

```

APP-004 is NOT launched until APP-001 reports DONE.

After all three return DONE:

```

[same message]

Agent(code-reviewer, "Review feat/APP-001-... for APP-001")

Agent(code-reviewer, "Review feat/APP-002-... for APP-002")

Agent(code-reviewer, "Review feat/APP-003-... for APP-003")

```

Then APP-004 launches with ios-developer, in parallel with whatever else is now ready.