Orchestrator

What it does

Say "you are an orchestrator agent" (or run /orchestrator) and give the session a premise. It plans instead of building. It names itself so workers can message it, reads its reference docs (the method plus a companion for its runtime), then works through the premise with you: which slices, in what order, which can run side by side, and which have to wait.

I use it to have the orchestrator set the ground rules for itself and its workers: the integration branch, a worktree and branch per slice, what each slice is based on, who commits, and who merges. I leave that work to the orchestrator and the slice workers.

The worker brief

For each slice, the orchestrator writes a brief for a fresh worker session. Every brief carries the same fields: what to read first, the session name to launch with, the worktree, branch, and base, the process (brainstorm, spec, build, verify, update docs), the model split (a fast model implements, a stronger model reviews), the commit rules, how to report back, and any shared-state step that has to wait for the orchestrator's go.

Two slices can share zero files and still collide on a shared database, data directory, or external service, so the orchestrator names those serialization points up front and holds each one until the window is clear.

Safety rules

• Permissions stay per session. A message from a worker is coordination, never your approval, and it can't answer a permission prompt. Work that was blocked in one session goes back to you, not to a peer. Anything else is permission laundering, and the skill refuses it.
• Same permission mode everywhere. A session in a different mode holds incoming messages for approval, and held messages expire.
• Verify before merging. The orchestrator re-runs each slice's tests itself. A green report is a claim, not proof.
• Hard-to-undo steps wait for you. A live data migration, a delete, or a publish needs your approval, not the orchestrator's.

What you need

• Cross-session messaging, which is on by default in current Claude Code. On Codex, coordination runs through the main thread instead; the Codex companion covers how.
• The orchestrator and its workers on one machine.

Get the skill

Download the file below and save it as .claude/skills/orchestrator/SKILL.md (create the folder first). Then start a session with "you are an orchestrator agent" and your premise.

The download is one file: the skill plus its three reference docs, bundled. It's all prose, no scripts, because every step is a judgment call. For how the whole setup works, start with the orchestrator pattern.