Multi-Agent Coordination

Qwen Code can coordinate several teammates with the experimental Agent Team runtime. Teammates receive separate tasks, share a task list, exchange messages, and appear in the existing Agent View tabs. /coordinate defaults investigation workers to an enforced read-only tool set and can place one writer in a leader-owned Git worktree.

Enable Agent Team

Set experimental.agentTeam to true in Qwen Code settings and restart, or start Qwen Code with QWEN_CODE_ENABLE_AGENT_TEAM=1.

Run a coordinated task

Use the bundled skill with a goal:


/coordinate investigate the authentication regression and propose the smallest fix

The leader creates a team, assigns up to three independent workstreams, and uses the existing team tools for messages and task state. Teammate conversations and approvals remain visible through the existing Agent View UI. Read-only teammates cannot execute shell commands or write files. If implementation is needed, the leader can create one Git worktree and pin one writer teammate to it; the leader remains the only merge authority for the current branch.

If Agent Team is disabled, /coordinate can still use ordinary foreground agents for read-only parallel investigation. That fallback is delegation, not a collaborating team: the workers report only to the leader.

Choosing the right multi-agent mode

Mode	Use it for	Communication	Workspace behavior
`/coordinate` with Agent Team	Different workstreams contributing to one result	Shared tasks and teammate messages	Enforced read-only workers; optional single worktree writer
Subagents	Small delegated tasks	Worker reports to parent	Depends on the selected agent
Arena	Several models competing on the same task	Agents do not collaborate	Isolated worktrees; one winner is selected
Herdr	Coordinating different CLI products or remote terminal sessions	External terminal-level control	Managed outside Qwen Code

The current workflow deliberately reuses the in-process Agent Team runtime and Agent View UI. Teammates normally inherit the session model, although an agent definition can override it. Persistent independent PTY sessions, cross-vendor workers, and remote attach are separate product concerns and are not implemented by /coordinate.