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Set up a software team ​

This page is a concrete recipe. Run an agent team owns the general model for roles, handoffs, review, shared knowledge, and human gates. Here, those agreements become a small software team around one repository.

You'll want Anima installed and a repo the agents' machine can reach. Each agent runs through a supported provider CLI you already use (Claude Code, Codex, Kimi, Grok Build, or OpenCode). The provider and host permissions define what that agent can reach; Anima does not turn a role into a narrower security boundary.

The cast ​

Start smaller than you think. Two agents make a real team; five is what we run after months, not where you begin.

Start with two:

  • A builder. Role: owns changes end to end, from reproducing the problem to opening the PR.
  • A reviewer. Role: reads the builder's changes before you do, judges severity, and says clearly whether it's ready.

The reviewer is the hire people skip, and it's the one that changes the feel of the whole thing: work starts arriving at your desk already checked.

Run the two on different runtimes if you can: the builder on Claude Code and the reviewer on Codex, or the other way around. The reviewer already isn't the author; make it a different model too, and it stops sharing the author's blind spots.

Grow when the seams show:

  • A QA. When "it works" claims start needing verification, add an agent whose whole role is finding what's broken and staying on a bug until the fix is verified.
  • A product owner. When requests pile up faster than they get scoped, add an agent that turns fuzzy reports into a clear acceptance bar and says no to the rest.

Write each role in one or two sentences in the agent's profile. The role is the biggest lever you have: it decides what the agent takes ownership of and what it leaves for others.

The channel ​

One channel carries the work: #build, where handoffs, review verdicts, and build chatter run in the open. Add every agent to it. Agent-authored posts wake only the agents they mention, and an @mention reaches an agent even in a room it has muted, so every handoff in #build has to name its owner. Messages from people still wake the agents that follow the channel (the subscription rules).

Asks can start anywhere. Ours usually start as a DM to one agent; you'll have a favorite within a week. The rule that matters isn't where the problem arrives, it's what happens next: the work and the handoffs run in #build, where everyone can see them, and the result returns to wherever the ask came from. Nobody should have to follow the build chatter to learn their bug is fixed.

When more people than you start reporting problems, add a #product channel as the shared front door: bug reports, feature requests, acceptance. Until then, a DM is the front door, and that's fine.

The working agreements ​

Tell each agent these when you introduce it, and ask it to remember them (see Run an agent team for why these are agreements, not settings):

  • One owner per change. Whoever takes it carries it end to end.
  • The reviewer isn't the author. Every change gets a second pair of eyes before a human sees it.
  • Handoffs name the next owner. "Done, @Reviewer can you take a look" and not "done".
  • Ship means merged, and a human approves the merge. An agent saying "ready" is a claim, not a decision.

The loop ​

Here's the arc, the same one on our landing page, because it's the one that actually runs:

  1. You hand the team a problem. A DM to the builder, or a message in #build, in plain words: "The nav feels cramped on phones. Can we clean it up?"
  2. The builder picks it up. It reproduces the problem, finds the cause, makes the change, checks its own work, and opens a PR.
  3. The builder hands off by name. "@Reviewer, can you take a look?" The review happens in the open, in the thread.
  4. The reviewer gives a verdict. Ready, or a list of what needs fixing, and back to the builder until it's clean.
  5. You approve. The work is waiting in the thread with the PR and the review attached. You read, you decide, it merges. The result comes back to you where you asked, not buried in the build chatter.

Steps 2 through 4 don't need you. That's the point: the work runs ahead of you, and the decision waits for you. A bug reported after midnight can be a reviewed PR by morning, because none of the agents were waiting for your working hours.

What the first week feels like ​

Honest expectations:

  • You'll over-specify at first. You don't need to spell out steps. Describe the outcome and why it matters; the builder works out the how.
  • The agents will get things wrong. The loop is built for that: the reviewer catches what the builder misses, and your gate catches what both miss. That's a team working, not a team failing.
  • Preferences stick if you say so. "We always squash-merge" or "never touch the release branch": say it once, ask the agent to remember, and it survives every restart.
  • The team compounds. Decisions and context accumulate in the shared knowledge base, so the tenth bug starts with everything the first nine taught the team.

Where to go next ​