Three real runs on a live Codeman: real sessions, real agents, one typed prompt each.
Nothing on screen is mocked up; the long waits are sped up and labelled as time-lapse.
### Five workers in the tile grid
The lead Claude Code session gets `use codeman to start 5 claude workers, one per TODO item`,
and five Claude Code workers power on, one per item, with all six agents working at once.
Sessions an agent starts do not join the grid by themselves. In this recording each worker
was put on the grid as it started, the way `Ctrl`+click or dragging its tab does it: see
[Tile Grid](Tile-Grid).
### Eight workers, eight tabs
The same prompt with eight workers, in the normal view. Every worker gets its own tab, and a
lineage line runs from the lead to each one, so you can see who spawned whom. Clicking a
worker's tab shows it at work.
### Two CLIs from one prompt
Workers do not have to run the same CLI as the lead. Here the prompt is
`use codeman to have a dsh worker on qwen build search and a claude one build checkout`: a
DeepSeek Harness worker on a local qwen model and a Claude Code worker power on side by side.
## Install it
Pick one route. The skill only acts inside a Codeman session, so a global install is safe.
| Bundled CLI | `codeman skill install --case <name> [--mode <mode>]` | One case. `--mode codex` (or any other run mode) writes it where that CLI looks for skills. |
| Web UI | **App Settings → Agents & CLIs → All agent CLIs → Codeman Agent Skill** | Injects it into each case when a session is created, where that session's CLI looks: `.claude/skills/` for Claude Code, `.agents/skills/` for Codex, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, Antigravity, Grok, DeepSeek and OMP. Off by default. |
Use the plugin **or**`codeman skill install`, not both: a Claude Code with both lists the
skill twice (`codeman` and `codeman:codeman`).
The web UI route skips pi, because a project skill makes pi ask to trust the folder at
startup. A pi or plain shell session uses the [`codeman agent`
commands](Driving-Codeman-From-An-Agent#the-codeman-agent-commands) instead, which are the
same verbs as shell commands.
### Remove it
`codeman skill uninstall [--case <name>]` reverses the CLI installs (with `--case`, every
Codeman-managed copy in that case, whichever CLI's directory it sits in). It never touches a
`skills/codeman` you wrote yourself.
Turning the web UI setting back off **does not remove copies it already injected**, because
a sweep at session start would pull the skill out from under other live sessions sharing
that directory. Remove them per case with `codeman skill uninstall --case <name>`.
| "What sessions are running right now?" | Lists them with name, mode and status. Read-only. |
| "Use codeman to start 5 claude workers, one per TODO item." | One worker per item, each handed its task, answers gathered as they finish. |
| "Start a shell worker on the `myapp` case, run the test suite, tell me if it passes." | Spawns, waits on a completion marker, reads the exit code, cleans up. |
| "Spin up 3 workers for lint, typecheck and tests, run them in parallel, report failures." | One session per task, all started first, then gathered as each finishes. |
| "Have a claude worker summarize `src/session.ts`, then close it." | Spawns, waits until the worker is ready, sends and waits, reads the answer, deletes the session. |
| "Have a DeepSeek Harness worker build search and a claude worker build checkout." | A mixed fleet: one worker per CLI, started in one go. |
| "Watch session w4 and tell me if it gets stuck on a permission prompt." | Blocks on the `blocked` signal and brings the question to **you**. |
Sessions the agent creates are deleted when it is done, so you can watch the tabs appear and
disappear in the dashboard while it works.
### A run, start to finish
> **You:** spin up 3 shell workers, run lint / typecheck / the frontend syntax check in
> parallel, and tell me which failed.
```text
lint -> 9f2d8e5f dispatched
typecheck -> aff9c691 dispatched 3 tabs appear in the dashboard
syntax -> be9f1f15 dispatched
lint DONE_lint_17909 rc=0
typecheck DONE_typecheck_3409 rc=0 gathered as each one finishes
| [`SKILL.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/skills/codeman/SKILL.md) | Safety rules, the fast path (start N workers, task them, collect the answers) and the verb index. Always loaded. |
| [`reference/verbs.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/skills/codeman/reference/verbs.md) | Every verb in detail: readiness, send-and-wait, markers, interrupts, cleanup. Loaded on demand. |
| [`reference/recipes.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/skills/codeman/reference/recipes.md) | Worked flows: claude, DeepSeek Harness and shell workers, fan-out, watching a blocked worker, messaging. Loaded on demand. |
| [`reference/endpoints.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/skills/codeman/reference/endpoints.md) | Endpoint tables, error codes, the signals each mode emits, capacity limits. Loaded on demand. |
| [`reference/messaging.md`](https://github.com/Ark0N/Codeman/blob/master/skills/codeman/reference/messaging.md) | Talking to claude workers directly through Claude Code's cross-session messaging. Loaded on demand. |
