Employee System

The boss agent dispatches tasks to CLI employees -- other AI runtimes that execute work in parallel. CLI-JAW supports 12 runtimes and manages employee sessions, isolation, and result collection.

How It Works

Your main agent (the "boss") can delegate specific tasks to employee agents using the jaw dispatch command. Each employee runs in an isolated temporary working directory with injected context files.

jaw dispatch --agent "Frontend" --task "Implement the login page"

The boss prompt includes delegation rules that guide the agent to use cli-jaw dispatch for employee work, while CLI-native sub-agents (Task/Agent tools) are allowed for internal parallelization.

12 CLI Runtimes

CLI-JAW's registry (src/cli/registry.ts) defines 11 top-level runtimes. Each employee can be assigned any runtime.

Employee vs Sub-Agent

Dispatch Command

# From the boss prompt:
cli-jaw dispatch --agent "Backend" --task "Add rate limiting to /api/upload"

# From the CLI:
jaw dispatch --agent "Frontend" --task "Fix responsive layout" --port 3457

The dispatch endpoint (POST /api/orchestrate/dispatch) requires a boss-scoped x-jaw-boss-token. This token is stripped from employee spawn environments, preventing employees from dispatching further.

Employee Prompt

Employee prompts are built by getEmployeePromptV2() and include:

1. Base employee.md template
2. Static system patch and declared skill injection
3. Common dev/SKILL.md
4. Role-specific skills (e.g., dev-frontend, dev-backend)
5. Phase-specific skills (e.g., dev-code-reviewer for Audit, dev-testing for Check)
6. Worker context with phase-specific rules
7. Delegation rules (no re-dispatch, sub-agents allowed)

Managing Employees

# List employees
jaw employee help

# Reset to defaults
jaw employee reset

# Via slash command
/employee reset

The Web UI provides full CRUD for employees under the sidebar settings panel. You can set each employee's name, CLI runtime, model, and role.

Default Employees

On first run, CLI-JAW seeds a default set of employees (Frontend, Backend, Documentation, etc.). The /employee reset command re-seeds these defaults.