feat: Per-directory squad context and area-scoped agent dispatch for monorepos

Background

During the AI Squads demo meeting (March 18, 2026), Michael Scott raised an important question about monorepo support:

"If I have a mono-repo, I want to keep each team-specific artifact under that team's specific directory. Is there a way to do this with subagents? It seems like everything is persisted under /squad."

"In the ideal world, the sub squads and team members would be defined under /src//.squads"

This is a real-world enterprise need ΓÇö large repos with multiple teams need area-specific squad configuration.

Proposed Features

Feature 1: Per-area `.squad-context.md` files (Easy ΓÇö works today as convention)

Add support for optional .squad-context.md files in subdirectories. When an agent works in a subdirectory, it auto-loads the nearest context file for area-specific routing hints, key files, and team context.

/src/area-a/.squad-context.md   ΓåÉ area-specific context
/src/area-b/.squad-context.md

Ralph/Picard auto-discovers these during triage and loads them as additional context.

Feature 2: Per-area `.squads/` inheritance (Medium ΓÇö enterprise-grade)

Allow per-area squad definitions that inherit from the root .squad/:

/.squad/              ΓåÉ HQ (root squad)
/src/area-a/.squads/  ΓåÉ area-specific team + routing overrides
  team.md             ΓåÉ subset of root squad members
  routing.md          ΓåÉ area-specific routing rules
/src/area-b/.squads/

Area squads inherit decisions, ceremonies, and skills from root but override team composition and routing.

Feature 3: Directory-aware agent dispatch (Full vision ΓÇö roadmap)

Full per-directory .squads/ config that auto-activates when agents enter that directory. Would require changes to squad's agent dispatch logic to detect and scope based on working directory.

Use Cases

Enterprise monorepos with 5+ teams sharing one repository
Platform teams wanting isolated squad config per service
Cross-functional squads where frontend/backend/infra each have domain-specific routing

Origin

Feedback from Michael Scott during AI Squads meeting ΓÇö captured in tamirdresher_microsoft/tamresearch1#1012

@tamirdresher

@tamirdresher -- this seems reasonable. Is this something you'd be open to us contributing on?

@michsco

@michsco absolutely!

🏗️ Squad Triage — Flight (Lead)

Issue: #457 — feat: Per-directory squad context and area-scoped agent dispatch for monorepos
Assigned to: DSKY (TUI Engineer)
Reason: Issue relates to frontend/UI work

@copilot evaluation: No strong capability match — routed to squad member.

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.

📋 Assigned to Flight (Lead)

Issue: #457 — feat: Per-directory squad context and area-scoped agent dispatch for monorepos

Flight 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:
Flight, work on issue #457

📋 Assigned to Procedures (Prompt Engineer)

Issue: #457 — feat: Per-directory squad context and area-scoped agent dispatch for monorepos

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 #457

@tamirdresher

"Area squads inherit decisions, ceremonies, and skills from root but override team composition and routing."

@tamirdresher -- Does this imply that there will not be area-specific decisions? It seems to me that teams working within the same monorepo may not necessarily make all the same decisions. If there is only a single decisions.md, this seems like it could be problematic. Teams should not necessarily inherit all the decisions of their sibling teams in the repo.

@chrisnielsen-MS

Hi @chrisnielsen-MS
Actually I imagined this to be just like upstream inherittence so the area squad will have decisions as well

fix: show buffered keystrokes during agent processing (github#457) (g…