Inherited flags for spawned teammates

SKILL: Inherited Flags For Spawned Teammates

Domain: multi-agent
Trigger: Apply whenever a teammate or tmux-based sub-agent is spawned and it must inherit the parent’s CLI flags and environment to stay aligned. Source Pattern: Distilled from reviewed multi-agent coordination and child-runtime patterns.

Core Method

Collect the leader’s active CLI options (permission mode, model override, settings path, inline plugins, teammate-mode, chrome override) via buildInheritedCliFlags, rendering them into --flag value strings that the spawned command receives. Parallelly, spool key environment variables (provider overrides, upstream proxy, credential markers) into buildInheritedEnvVars, giving the new process CLAUDECODE=1, CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1, and any configured provider/proxy keys so the teammate shares the same backend references. Apply both sets when composing the tmux env + command invocation so the teammate behaves identically to its leader.

Key Rules

• Propagate permission mode flags only when plan mode is not required; plan mode takes precedence and should block bypass propagation.
• Always include model, settings, plugin directories, teammate mode, and chrome toggles that the leader specified.
• Forward provider-specific env vars (e.g., MITM proxy, CLAUDE_CODE_USE_BEDROCK) plus canonical teammates flags so spawned shells hit the same endpoints.
• Add CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 and CLAUDECODE=1 to signal the child process about the teammate experiment context.

Example Application

When a coordinator spawns a tmux teammate for claude backup, reuse this skill by calling the helper functions, appending the resulting --flag arguments and env KEY=VAL string to the tmux new-session command so the teammate shares flags, models, plugins, and upstream proxy configuration.

Anti-Patterns (What NOT to do)

• Don’t spawn teammates with a blank env—they will default to first-party endpoints and lose plugin context.
• Don’t forget to skip bypass-permissions flags when plan mode is required; inheriting bypass would violate plan-mode guarantees.
• Avoid hardcoding env keys; derive the list from the TEAMMATE_ENV_VARS constant so new proxies or secrets get forwarded consistently.