Multi-Agent Teams

Coordinate multiple agents working together on complex tasks with delegation, shared context, and result merging.

Multi-agent teams let you break complex work across multiple agents that coordinate through a shared task board. One agent acts as the coordinator, delegating subtasks to specialist agents and merging their results.

Enabling Teams

Teams are a ClineCore feature. Enable them in the session config:

import { ClineCore } from "@cline/sdk"

const cline = await ClineCore.create({ clientName: "team-app" })

const session = await cline.start({
  prompt: "Plan and implement a user authentication module with tests",
  config: {
    providerId: "anthropic",
    modelId: "claude-sonnet-4-6",
    apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
    systemPrompt: "You are a coordinator for a multi-agent coding team.",
    cwd: "/path/to/project",
    workspaceRoot: "/path/to/project",
    enableTools: true,
    enableSpawnAgent: true,
    enableAgentTeams: true,
    teamName: "auth-sprint",
  },
})

How Teams Work

When teams are enabled, the coordinator agent gets these tools:

Purpose	Tools
Teammates	`team_spawn_teammate`, `team_shutdown_teammate`, `team_status`
Task board	`team_task` (create, list, claim, complete and block tasks)
Running tasks	`team_run_task`, `team_list_runs`, `team_await_runs`, `team_cancel_run`
Messages	`team_send_message`, `team_broadcast`, `team_read_mailbox`, `team_mission_log`
Combined results	`team_create_outcome`, `team_attach_outcome_fragment`, `team_review_outcome_fragment`, `team_finalize_outcome`, `team_list_outcomes`
Clean-up	`team_cleanup`

Teammates get the same tools except team_spawn_teammate, and only the coordinator can shut teammates down or clean up the team. The coordinator decides how to split work, which agents to create, and how to combine results.

Team Persistence

Team state belongs to the session. Cline saves each team's task board, mailbox, mission log, results and teammates in ~/.cline/data/db/teams.db, under the session's ID. When the session resumes, its team and teammates come back.

Via CLI

Start a prompt with /team to start a team, and resume the session with cline --id <session-id> to continue its work. Agent Teams has the details.

cline "/team Plan and implement user auth with tests"

Sub-Agents vs Teams

The SDK offers two levels of multi-agent coordination:

Feature	Sub-Agents	Teams
Enable with	`enableSpawnAgent: true`	`enableAgentTeams: true`
Persistence	Within session only	Restored when the session resumes
Coordination	Parent-child	Peer-to-peer with task board
Shared state	None	Task board, mailbox, mission log
Best for	One-off delegation	Complex projects that you resume over time

Sub-agents are lighter weight. The parent agent spawns a child, waits for its result, and continues. No persistent state, no task board.

// Sub-agents: simple delegation within a single session
const session = await cline.start({
  config: {
    enableSpawnAgent: true,  // Agent can spawn sub-agents
    // ...
  },
  // ...
})

Teams are for bigger efforts that you come back to, where agents need to coordinate asynchronously.

When to Use Teams

Teams add overhead. Use them when:

The task naturally decomposes into independent subtasks
Different subtasks benefit from different system prompts or specializations
You will resume the session over several days
You want a persistent record of task delegation and completion

For simpler cases, a single agent with good tools is usually more efficient than a team.