Team Composition Patterns

Best practices for composing multi-agent teams, selecting team sizes, choosing agent types, and configuring display modes for Claude Code's Agent Teams feature.

When to Use This Skill

• Deciding how many teammates to spawn for a task
• Choosing between preset team configurations
• Selecting the right agent type (subagent_type) for each role
• Configuring teammate display modes (tmux, iTerm2, in-process)
• Building custom team compositions for non-standard workflows

Team Sizing Heuristics

| Complexity | Team Size | When to Use | | ------------ | --------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | Simple | 1-2 | Single-dimension review, isolated bug, small feature | | Moderate | 2-3 | Multi-file changes, 2-3 concerns, medium features | | Complex | 3-4 | Cross-cutting concerns, large features, deep debugging | | Very Complex | 4-5 | Full-stack features, comprehensive reviews, systemic issues |

Rule of thumb: Start with the smallest team that covers all required dimensions. Adding teammates increases coordination overhead.

Preset Team Compositions

Review Team

• Size: 3 reviewers
• Agents: 3x team-reviewer
• Default dimensions: security, performance, architecture
• Use when: Code changes need multi-dimensional quality assessment

Debug Team

• Size: 3 investigators
• Agents: 3x team-debugger
• Default hypotheses: 3 competing hypotheses
• Use when: Bug has multiple plausible root causes

Feature Team

• Size: 3 (1 lead + 2 implementers)
• Agents: 1x team-lead + 2x team-implementer
• Use when: Feature can be decomposed into parallel work streams

Fullstack Team

• Size: 4 (1 lead + 3 implementers)
• Agents: 1x team-lead + 1x frontend team-implementer + 1x backend team-implementer + 1x test team-implementer
• Use when: Feature spans frontend, backend, and test layers

Research Team

• Size: 3 researchers
• Agents: 3x general-purpose
• Default areas: Each assigned a different research question, module, or topic
• Capabilities: Codebase search (Grep, Glob, Read), web search (WebSearch, WebFetch)
• Use when: Need to understand a codebase, research libraries, compare approaches, or gather information from code and web sources in parallel

Security Team

• Size: 4 reviewers
• Agents: 4x team-reviewer
• Default dimensions: OWASP/vulnerabilities, auth/access control, dependencies/supply chain, secrets/configuration
• Use when: Comprehensive security audit covering multiple attack surfaces

Migration Team

• Size: 4 (1 lead + 2 implementers + 1 reviewer)
• Agents: 1x team-lead + 2x team-implementer + 1x team-reviewer
• Use when: Large codebase migration (framework upgrade, language port, API version bump) requiring parallel work with correctness verification

Agent Type Selection

When spawning teammates with the Task tool, choose subagent_type based on what tools the teammate needs:

| Agent Type | Tools Available | Use For | | ------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | general-purpose | All tools (Read, Write, Edit, Bash, etc.) | Implementation, debugging, any task requiring file changes | | Explore | Read-only tools (Read, Grep, Glob) | Research, code exploration, analysis | | Plan | Read-only tools | Architecture planning, task decomposition | | agent-teams:team-reviewer | All tools | Code review with structured findings | | agent-teams:team-debugger | All tools | Hypothesis-driven investigation | | agent-teams:team-implementer | All tools | Building features within file ownership boundaries | | agent-teams:team-lead | All tools | Team orchestration and coordination |

Key distinction: Read-only agents (Explore, Plan) cannot modify files. Never assign implementation tasks to read-only agents.

Display Mode Configuration

Configure in ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "teammateMode": "tmux"
}

| Mode | Behavior | Best For | | -------------- | ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------- | | "tmux" | Each teammate in a tmux pane | Development workflows, monitoring multiple agents | | "iterm2" | Each teammate in an iTerm2 tab | macOS users who prefer iTerm2 | | "in-process" | All teammates in same process | Simple tasks, CI/CD environments |

Custom Team Guidelines

When building custom teams:

1. Every team needs a coordinator — Either designate a team-lead or have the user coordinate directly
2. Match roles to agent types — Use specialized agents (reviewer, debugger, implementer) when available
3. Avoid duplicate roles — Two agents doing the same thing wastes resources
4. Define boundaries upfront — Each teammate needs clear ownership of files or responsibilities
5. Keep it small — 2-4 teammates is the sweet spot; 5+ requires significant coordination overhead