Quickstart

One captain, one crew, one report. Run these inside an interactive Herdr workspace, in the project you want worked on.

1. Start a captain#

captain --agent codex

The current tab is renamed Captain Barbossa and the pane is replaced by the chosen CLI. Native input, history, permissions, and login all stay with that agent — you are talking to Codex, with a captain's instructions appended.

Omit --agent and it asks which of Claude Code, Codex, pi, or Grok to use. --prompt TEXT supplies the first task.

2. Recruit crew#

Ask in plain language:

Recruit crew to review the current changes.

Or run the command from a shell attached to the same session:

captain crew --task "Review the current changes"

With no preferences stated, the captain uses its own CLI, automatic placement, and the cheap model tier. A pane opens beside it without stealing focus, and the task is submitted once the agent is ready.

The crew is named for you — Jack, Will, Elizabeth, Gibbs, and on down a fixed list. That one name is its ID, its pane label, and the name you use in every other command.

3. Wait for the report#

Wait for Jack.

captain wait Jack

wait returns a notification: activity, a question, an approval prompt, or completion. A native agent going idle is not completion — an assignment is finished only when the crew records an explicit done with a report.

4. Follow up, or finish#

captain tell Jack "also update the changelog" --assignment <assignment-id>
captain status
captain dismiss Jack

tell appends to the active assignment without replacing the original task. dismiss is permanent: it closes the pane and frees the name, so handle unreported or uncommitted work first.

What to read next#

1. Ownership and guardrails — give simultaneous writers disjoint files.
2. Placement — declare the tab shape you actually want.
3. Dashboard — watch what the team is costing.