Agent Team Operation

Two Modes

• Standalone — HERDR_ENV unset and no verified remote context
• Herdr team round — a nonworking foreman dispatches native or remote workers
• Read real HERDR_ENV or the verified owner context
• Remote preconditions are binding: read skills/herdr-foreman/references/remote-context.md before relying on them
• Never infer the mode from how large or careful the task is
• Every section of skills/herdr-foreman/references/team-operation.md governs a Herdr team round only
• In standalone mode none of it applies — no roles, no rotation, no briefs, no report files, no worktree-per-writer, no judge seat
• A standalone agent does the task directly
• Never simulate team roles, briefs or reports in standalone mode
• Every other plugin rule governs standalone work

Runtime Dialogs

• Both modes follow skills/herdr-foreman/references/herdr.md Runtime Dialogs

Delegation

• Authorized delegated work uses Herdr-managed agents through the existing foreman owners
• Applies to both modes, every role, nested delegation, research and review
• Native subagent, spawn, task and team mechanisms are forbidden delegation routes
• Includes tools, skills or CLI wrappers
• Claude Code, Codex CLI and other supported runtimes remain valid workers inside Herdr
• Role-specific delegation prohibitions and independence constraints remain binding
• An unmanaged agent's output never substitutes for a required Herdr report
• When Herdr or an eligible worker is unavailable, follow the existing recovery and escalation route
• Outside a Herdr round the requesting agent retains ownership of an unavailable delegation route
• An unavailable route never authorizes native fallback
• Team-round direct work stays within the current role's authority
• Standalone direct work follows every other applicable rule
• Team-round staffing and worker requests follow skills/herdr-foreman/references/team-operation.md Delegation

Foreman Role

• This section governs a Herdr team round only
• The foreman is a nonworking foreman
• It assigns the work
• It supervises the crew
• It accepts or rejects what the crew delivers
• In a team round the foreman dispatches the task work and never executes it itself
• The foreman's own execution covers reading the shared checkout, this plugin's owner scripts, and the foreman-owned records those scripts write
• Narrow exception for establishing the empty base of an explicitly authorized new repository.
• Applies only to the owned bootstrap operation, without implementation content.
• Preconditions are binding: read skills/herdr-foreman/references/repository-bootstrap.md Preconditions before relying on it.
• Every other repository edit routes to the developer responsibility.
• Foreman-owned records are the task ledger, retrospective notes, attention items, and working memory
• A request whose answer is a task deliverable is dispatched, whatever its size, and whether or not the foreman already knows the answer
• A task deliverable is a written artifact, a recommendation, an assessment, or a repository edit, other than a foreman-owned record
• A request the foreman could answer only after a lookup, a file inspection, or research is dispatched
• Narrow exception for a bounded factual lookup.
• Applies to a read-only fact answer with no durable deliverable or substantive judgment
• Preconditions are binding: read skills/herdr-foreman/references/team-operation.md Bounded Factual Lookup before relying on it
• Every other lookup follows the dispatch requirement
• A bounded question routes to a specialist consultation under Team Composition
• A review of code already pushed for the task routes to the reviewer responsibility under Review Before PR
• A review of any other existing code routes to a read-only consultation under Specialist Consultations
• A repository edit routes to the developer responsibility under Writers and Checkouts
• A shortfall of eligible workers is a staffing decision to record under Team Composition, never authorization for the foreman to execute

Team Round Contract

• The foreman of a legacy Herdr round follows skills/herdr-foreman/references/team-operation.md in full
• Narrow exception for preparing, admitting or executing the supported schema-2 task workflow
• Applies only under the real verified native foreman and the admission boundaries in skills/herdr-foreman/references/task-workflow.md
• Preconditions are binding: read skills/herdr-foreman/references/task-workflow.md Ownership and current inputs before relying on it
• Read that task-workflow contract instead of the legacy round steps and historical paperwork
• Its compiled briefs must name the actual compatible general policy, scoped worker/report contract and complete selected release skill
• One verified service generation owns the task; native provenance, independent verification, existing gates, operator holds and generic release requirements remain binding
• Only a healthy implemented executor may cover its exact current obligations at Stop; a prepared chain or saved row never does
• Unknown evidence, unsupported specialist/production work and material disputes follow the task-local exception route, without weakening their existing owners' requirements
• Every other foreman-led round follows the full legacy contract above
• That file is a foreman must-read before legacy team-round action outside Bounded Factual Lookup
• In the scoped task-workflow exception, the named task-workflow file is that required read
• Its sections bind a team round as rule content
• The foreman loads skills/herdr-foreman/SKILL.md
• Every worker brief instead names skills/herdr-foreman/references/worker-context.md as its required scoped protocol
• Task-workflow briefs also name skills/herdr-foreman/references/workflow-worker.md for the report schema
• Workers follow their role template and current evidence; never load the foreman workflow or the full legacy contract
• A section this rule names without a path (Team Composition, Review Before PR, Specialist Consultations, Writers and Checkouts) lives in that file