agent-author

Agent Author

Apply discipline per ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/_shared/DISCIPLINE.md (covers $ARGUMENTS handling, evidence, validation, and safety).

Distinctive judgment

A good agent has tight tool permissions (least-privilege), a sharp body that explains what it does and what it returns, and a clear use case. Parameterized agents (reviewer, auditor with focus arg) collapse many would-be-distinct agents into one. Agent value comes from context isolation, not from prose specialization.

First signals to inspect

• Agent fleet in this plugin (29 agents in V8; for shape reference)
• Tool permission patterns (Read/Grep/Glob for read-only; +Bash for discovery; Write only for narrow scratch use)
• Existing parameterized agents (reviewer, auditor) — could the new agent be a focus arg instead?
• Orchestration: when is this agent dispatched? By which skills?

Failure modes specific to this lane

• Adding a new agent when an existing parameterized one would do
• Tool permissions too broad (Write+Edit when read-only suffices)
• Body that duplicates DISCIPLINE.md content
• No clear return contract (caller doesn't know what to expect)
• Orchestration unclear: which skill spawns this agent?

Workflow

1. Confirm the agent is needed: existing agent (parameterized or not) doesn't cover the role.
2. Draft frontmatter: name, description, max_turns, tools, disallowed_tools, color.
3. Apply least-privilege to tools.
4. Draft body: what this agent does, what it returns, behavior with discipline reference.
5. Update orchestration: which skills dispatch this agent and when.
6. Validate via plugin validator.

Validation

Run validate-plugin.py. Smoke-test: dispatch the agent from a parent skill in a test scenario; confirm it returns the expected structured output.

Output contract

Schema below + ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/_shared/OUTPUT-CONTRACT.md + evidence-led style.

schema:
  - field: Agent Frontmatter
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "none"
  - field: Tool Permission Justification
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "none"
  - field: Body Sections
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "none"
  - field: Return Contract
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "consumer + version + breaking-change classification"
  - field: Orchestration Update
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "none"
  - field: Validator Result
    type: section
    required: true
    evidence_rule: "none"

Agent Frontmatter | Tool Permission Justification | Body Sections | Return Contract | Orchestration Update | Validator Result

Subagent delegation

Dispatch writer for body prose. See _shared/playbooks/agent-team-orchestration-patterns.md.

V4 aliases

This skill answers to V4 names: agent-authoring, agent-orchestration-plan, agent-team-playbook. The router resolves them to agent-author and notes the alias in its response.