Designing cc-suite Advisor Agents

cc-suite advisor agents are project-scoped consultative personas backed by claude-octopus. Each lives at .cc-suite/agents/<name>.md and is registered as an MCP server in both .mcp.json (Claude side) and .codex/config.toml (Codex side) by scripts/bridge_agents.py. Either tool can call any agent via mcp__<name>__<tool_name>.

Advisors are not subagents that do work. They are advisors that judge work. Get this mental model right and the rest follows.

When to make an advisor vs use the Task tool vs write a skill

• Task tool / subagent: needed when you want a subagent to execute a focused chunk of work in isolated context (research, refactor a file, run a probe). The subagent returns a result and disappears.
• Skill: knowledge or convention that any caller can load on demand. Static text. No model invocation.
• Advisor agent: needed when you want a persistent persona with a stable point of view that the main caller can consult repeatedly. Different system prompt, different tool restrictions, different model — and the advisor remembers past consultations via its timeline directory.

Rule of thumb: if you'd describe the thing as "a person you'd ask for an opinion," it's an advisor. If you'd describe it as "a job you'd hand off," it's a subagent. If it's "a rulebook," it's a skill.

The file format