Handoff That to Agent Pane

Treat the handoff as a brief: give the specialist the relevant context, a bounded assignment, and a checkable deliverable.

Take the snapshot first: load and follow the tmp-snapshot skill before any other step in this workflow, preflight included. Load and follow the herdr skill before issuing any Herdr command.

Resolve the brief

Determine these inputs from the request:

• Agent: claude, codex, agent (Cursor Agent), or pi. Default to claude when the user omits it. Take the executable's Herdr --kind from the launch matrix: read ~/.agents/skills/herdr-orchestration/references/agent-launch.md. When that file is not installed, take the kind from herdr agent's installed kind list instead — the kinds are named for agents, and the executable name agent is not among them.
• Model: normalize natural-language model and effort names before choosing the launch command; otherwise use the table below.
• Context slice: include only the part of the conversation and current work the specialist needs.
• Assignment: state the work to perform, its boundaries, whether edits are allowed, the deliverable, and how to verify it.
• Delegation: carry any requested subagent strategy into the assignment, including requests to use as many subagents as useful.
• Return path: decide whether the user only wants the pane started or wants this session to collect and integrate the result.

Ask once before mutating anything only when the assignment cannot be inferred safely.