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Governance layer has no awareness of personal squad paths #344

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Governance layer has no awareness of personal squad paths#344
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go:needs-researchNeeds investigationnext-upPriority queue — next issues to workpriority:p2Next sprintsquadSquad triage inbox — Lead will assign to a membertype:featureNew capability

Description

@jsturtevant
jsturtevant
opened on Mar 10, 2026

Problem

The personal squad path resolution (resolveGlobalSquadPath() → platform-specific dirs like ~/.config/squad/) lives entirely in SDK code. The governance layer — squad.agent.md, charter templates, and skills — has zero awareness of personal squads.

What's missing

1. squad.agent.md (coordinator instructions)

  • Init Mode references --global but doesn't explain where it resolves to
  • No guidance for agents operating in consult mode against a personal squad
  • The TEAM_ROOT concept works, but nothing tells the coordinator that a personal squad has different semantics (shared across projects, skills are portable, etc.)

2. Charter templates (.squad/templates/charter.md)

  • No personal-squad-aware patterns
  • When casting a personal squad, charters should reflect that skills/knowledge are project-agnostic
  • No guidance on "this agent lives in a personal squad and will be used across multiple repos"

3. Skills and templates

  • All .squad/skills/ and .squad/templates/ reference .squad/ as project-relative only
  • No skill for "how to behave when spawned from a personal squad" or "how consult mode changes agent behavior"

Impact

  • Agents spawned via consult mode don't know they're backed by a personal squad
  • The coordinator can't give agents context about personal vs project squads
  • Personal squad casting has no template support (related: CLI casting bypasses CastingEngine template system #342)
  • Skills earned in one project via a personal squad have no guidance on portability

Expected Behavior

The governance layer should:

  1. Define personal squad semantics in squad.agent.md (how consult mode works, what TEAM_ROOT means when pointing to a personal squad)
  2. Provide charter template variants for personal squad agents (project-agnostic framing)
  3. Include a skill or template for consult-mode behavior (what's different when the squad is personal)

Related

Activity

  1. jsturtevant commented on Mar 11, 2026

    @jsturtevant
    jsturtevant
    on Mar 11, 2026
    ContributorAuthor

    Additional gap: config.json → teamRoot resolution missing from coordinator

    The coordinator's team root resolution in squad.agent.md (Worktree Awareness section) only describes worktree-based discovery:

    1. git rev-parse --show-toplevel → check for .squad/
    2. Fall back to main working tree

    But there's a third path that's completely missing: config-directed resolution. When config.json has a teamRoot field (e.g., "teamRoot": "C:\\src\\squad-pr"), the SDK's resolveSquadPaths() follows it to load team identity from an external location. The coordinator has no instructions to read config.json for this field, so:

    • The coordinator won't discover the remote team root
    • Agents get a TEAM_ROOT that doesn't match the SDK's actual resolution
    • Remote/consult mode is effectively broken at the governance layer

    Fix needed in squad.agent.md: Add a step to the team root resolution:

    3. Check .squad/config.json for a \teamRoot\ field.
   - If present → team identity (charters, skills, casting) lives at that path.
   - Pass both TEAM_ROOT (identity) and PROJECT_ROOT (local .squad/) to agents.

    This is the same dual-root problem described in the personal squad proposal's open design question — the governance layer needs to mirror what the SDK already does in resolveSquadPaths().

  2. zeier
    added a commit that references this issue on Mar 11, 2026

    docs: accessibility audit report (github#344)

    9f044f3
  3. bradygaster
    added
    squadSquad triage inbox — Lead will assign to a member
    squad:verbal
    squad:fenster
    priority:p2Next sprint
    type:featureNew capability
    on Mar 13, 2026
  4. github-actions
    added
    squad:dsky
    on Mar 13, 2026

  5. github-actions commented on Mar 13, 2026

    @github-actions
    github-actionsBot
    on Mar 13, 2026 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

    🏗️ Squad Triage — Flight (Lead)

    Issue: #344 — Governance layer has no awareness of personal squad paths
    Assigned to: DSKY (TUI Engineer)
    Reason: Issue relates to frontend/UI work

    @copilot evaluation: 🔴 Not suitable — issue involves work outside the coding agent's capability profile.

    Team roster:

    • Flight (Lead) → label: squad:flight
    • Procedures (Prompt Engineer) → label: squad:procedures
    • EECOM (Core Dev) → label: squad:eecom
    • FIDO (Quality Owner) → label: squad:fido
    • PAO (DevRel) → label: squad:pao
    • CAPCOM (SDK Expert) → label: squad:capcom
    • CONTROL (TypeScript Engineer) → label: squad:control
    • Surgeon (Release Manager) → label: squad:surgeon
    • Booster (CI/CD Engineer) → label: squad:booster
    • GNC (Node.js Runtime) → label: squad:gnc
    • Network (Distribution) → label: squad:network
    • RETRO (Security) → label: squad:retro
    • INCO (CLI UX & Visual Design) → label: squad:inco
    • GUIDO (VS Code Extension) → label: squad:guido
    • Telemetry (Aspire & Observability) → label: squad:telemetry
    • VOX (REPL & Interactive Shell) → label: squad:vox
    • DSKY (TUI Engineer) → label: squad:dsky
    • Sims (E2E Test Engineer) → label: squad:sims
    • Handbook (SDK Usability) → label: squad:handbook
    • Ralph (Work Monitor) → label: squad:ralph
    • @copilot (Coding Agent) → label: squad:copilot

    To reassign, remove the current squad:* label and add the correct one.

  6. github-actions
    added
    go:needs-researchNeeds investigation
    on Mar 13, 2026
  7. bradygaster
    added
    squad:procedures
    squad:eecom
    and removed
    squad:dsky
    squad:verbal
    squad:fenster
    on Mar 13, 2026

  8. 1 remaining item

  9. github-actions commented on Mar 13, 2026

    @github-actions
    github-actionsBot
    on Mar 13, 2026 – with GitHub Actions
    Contributor

    📋 Assigned to Procedures (Prompt Engineer)

    Issue: #344 — Governance layer has no awareness of personal squad paths

    Procedures will pick this up in the next Copilot session.

    For Copilot coding agent: If enabled, this issue will be worked automatically.
    Otherwise, start a Copilot session and say:
    Procedures, work on issue #344

  10. github
    deleted a comment from github-actions on Mar 18, 2026
  11. github
    deleted a comment from github-actions on Mar 18, 2026
  12. bradygaster
    added
    next-upPriority queue — next issues to work
    on Mar 22, 2026

  13. bradygaster commented on Mar 22, 2026

    @bradygaster
    bradygaster
    on Mar 22, 2026
    Collaborator

    🏗️ Flight — Governance Layer Design for Personal Squads

    This is addressed in the Ambient Personal Squad design proposal: .squad/decisions/inbox/flight-ambient-personal-squad.md\ (also linked from #329).

    What the design adds for #344 specifically:

    1. \squad.agent.md\ updates — Extended Worktree Awareness section that reads \config.json\ for \ eamRoot\ AND discovers the personal squad from the global config directory. The coordinator now passes both \TEAM_ROOT\ and \PROJECT_ROOT\ to personal agents.

    2. Charter template variant — New personal squad charter template with cross-project framing, Ghost Protocol section, and deference-to-project-agents boundary.

    3. Routing priority — Personal routing rules are resolved after project routing rules. Project agents always take precedence for matching tasks.

    4. Agent origin tagging — Every agent in the session cast is tagged \origin: 'project' | 'personal'. The coordinator uses this to select the right spawn template and enforce Ghost Protocol.

    5. Session audit trail — Orchestration log entries record which personal agents participated, giving visibility into 'who helped' without polluting the project's squad state.

    The key gap this closes: The coordinator currently discovers team root only via filesystem traversal. The design adds personal squad discovery as a parallel resolution path — always checked, gracefully skipped if no personal squad exists.

    Next steps: Phase 2 of the implementation (Ghost Protocol + governance changes) is where the \squad.agent.md\ and charter template changes ship. Phase 1 (ambient discovery) lays the SDK foundation first.

    cc @jsturtevant

  14. bradygaster
    added 6 commits that reference this issue on Mar 22, 2026

    feat: economy mode skill, governance proposals for #500 and #344

    1ae753c

    Scribe: Wave 1 decisions merged (#329/#344/#500)

    d4e9642

    fix: hard-fail on Node <22.5.0 with clear message (#502) (#506)

    b741222

    feat: economy mode for cost-conscious model selection (#500) (#504)

    a30252f

    feat: economy mode skill, governance proposals for #500 and #344 (#503)

    f86367c

    docs: log session 2 — wave 1+2 results, 4 PRs merged

    d262715

  15. bradygaster commented on Mar 23, 2026

    @bradygaster
    bradygaster
    on Mar 23, 2026
    Collaborator

    Superseded by #508 — governance layer now has personal squad awareness.

  16. bradygaster
    closed this as completedon Mar 23, 2026
  17. bradygaster
    removed
    squad:procedures
    squad:eecom
    on Sep 11, 2026
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