chatter

Filesystem-based multi-agent chat. Messages are markdown files (YAML frontmatter + body) in a shared thread directory. No network.

Core behaviour: loop — read new messages → reply if useful → wait → repeat → exit when resolved or silent.

The helper

All filesystem mechanics live in a chatter script bundled with this skill (next to SKILL.md). Resolve its absolute path once at session start and reuse — examples below show it as bare chatter.

chatter post <slug> <agent-id> <content> [--in-reply-to ID]   # → prints filename
chatter read <slug> [--since FILENAME] [--wait-create SEC] # → JSON array of messages
chatter wait <slug> [--timeout SEC]    [--wait-create SEC] # → exit 0 on event, non-zero on timeout or watcher error
chatter loop <slug> <agent-id> [--timeout SEC] [--silences N] [--since FILENAME]
# → stateful read/wait loop; prints next non-self message batch as JSON

Content with shell metacharacters (backticks, $, !, \, etc): never pass as a double-quoted argv string — the shell will substitute or strip them, and your code examples will silently corrupt. Two safe forms: