Orchestray

Multi-agent orchestration plugin for Claude Code. Automatically detects complex tasks, decomposes them across specialized AI agents, and produces fully audited output — without manual configuration.

What it does

You type a prompt. Orchestray's PM agent scores its complexity. If it warrants orchestration, the PM decomposes the task, assigns agents (architect, developer, reviewer, custom specialists), coordinates their work, and delivers a consolidated result with full audit trail.

Simple prompts pass through to normal Claude Code behavior. Complex prompts get the full treatment.

Key features

• Upgrade restart prompt — after /orchestray:update, any open Claude Code session sees a one-time stderr reminder on the next user message to restart so the refreshed agent registry takes effect; driven by a schema-v2 sentinel (~/.claude/.orchestray-upgrade-pending) written by install.js and consumed by post-upgrade-sweep.js's 4-case state machine (TTL: 7 days)
• Context status bar — live subagent context usage, model tier, and effort level in the Claude Code status line; driven by bin/collect-context-telemetry.js and bin/statusline.js (< 50 ms); toggle with context_statusbar.enabled config key Note: Orchestray claims the Claude Code statusLine slot; if you already use another statusLine command, disable Orchestray's with context_statusbar.enabled: false. Diagnostic: run echo '{}' | node bin/statusline.js --dump-stdin to verify the statusLine stdin payload shape reaching the hook (useful when the status line renders blank or stale). FILL semantics: the percentage and token count in [ctx 28% 283.3K/1M opu-4-7] measure input-side context pressure (prompt + cache tokens) — not total tokens transacted per spawn. Output tokens leave the model and don't count against the context window, so this number will always be lower than Claude Code's per-spawn total-token counter. An unknown model shows ~TOTAL instead of TOTAL to signal the denominator is a default guess.
• Context-saving bundle — six coordinated prompt-engineering techniques (handoff shrinkage, PM slimming, output discipline, Read/Grep hygiene, cache-boundary preservation, telemetry integration) reduce agent token consumption by an estimated ~7k–15k per medium-complexity orchestration
• Auto-trigger — complexity scoring detects when orchestration helps, self-calibrates over time
• Smart model routing — assigns Haiku/Sonnet/Opus per subtask based on complexity, tracks cost savings; routing decisions are persisted to .orchestray/state/routing.jsonl and hook-enforced on every Agent(), Explore(), and Task() spawn, surviving context compaction and session reloads
• Mid-task elicitation — agents can pause to ask the user a structured ≤5-field form via mcp__orchestray__ask_user and resume with the answers; no orchestration unwind required
• Hook-enforced MCP retrieval — pre-decomposition pattern_find, kb_search, and history_find_similar_tasks calls are verified by gate-agent-spawn.js via a checkpoint ledger (.orchestray/state/mcp-checkpoint.jsonl) before the first orchestration spawn; falls back gracefully via mcp_enforcement config flags with no session restart required; the mcp_enforcement block is automatically migrated into .orchestray/config.json on first 2.0.13+ use; after pattern_find returns, the PM calls either pattern_record_application or pattern_record_skip_reason to produce an auditable signal for every outcome; a skipped pre-spawn retrieval emits a one-time info: advisory to stderr (warn-mode)
• Cache-Aware Tool Result Compaction (R14) — a PreToolUse:Read hook (bin/context-shield.js) denies re-reads of the same (file_path, mtime, size) triple within a session with no offset/limit change, eliminating cache-replay token waste; re-reads with an explicit offset/limit or after on-disk changes are always allowed; disable per-session via shield.r14_dedup_reads.enabled: false
• Cache-choreographed PM prompt — agents/pm.md organised into Block A (immutable prefix) / breakpoint sentinel / Block B (semi-stable) / Block C (tail); a UserPromptSubmit hook detects prefix drift and emits an audit event; opt-in pre-commit guard prevents accidental Block A edits
• Cache-hit and cost telemetry — per-spawn and per-PM-turn metrics recorded in agent_metrics.jsonl; cache-hit sparklines, cost-delta vs frozen baseline, and active-experiment state visible in /orchestray:analytics
• Lean PM prompt — agents/pm.md trimmed ~12% (WASTE-tier only: inline config JSON, duplicated warnings, navigation breadcrumbs); pre-strip rollback scaffolding (pm_prompt_variant, pm.old.md) retired in v2.0.18
• Adaptive response-length budgets — reviewer and architect delegation templates include a response_budget line scaled to remaining cost margin; reviewer floor at 600 tokens prevents quality-signal truncation (opt-in experiment, default OFF)
• Live-tail observability — /orchestray:watch polls the current orchestration and renders a compact agent-status table; /orchestray:state peek gives a read-only snapshot at any time
• Mid-flight operator control — /orchestray:state pause blocks further spawns between groups; /orchestray:state cancel triggers a clean abort with state archival; /orchestray:state gc archives or discards leaked state dirs
• W-item replay — /orchestray:redo <W-id> [--cascade] re-runs a single step or its full dependent closure; batch confirmation upfront
• Plan preview — /orchestray:run --preview shows the decomposition and cost estimate before any agents are spawned
• Honest pattern confidence — pattern_find returns decayed_confidence and age_days; patterns lose confidence over time so stale advice is surfaced clearly, not silently applied
• Counterfactual skip signal — pattern_record_skip_reason captures structured match_quality and skip_category for every skipped pattern, enabling retrospective loop-quality analysis
• Anti-pattern advisory gate — before each agent spawn, matching anti-patterns are injected as advisories into the spawned agent's context; advisory-only, never blocks
• Pre-spawn cost projection — cost_budget_check MCP tool projects the cost of a proposed Agent() spawn against configured caps (max_cost_usd, daily_cost_limit_usd) before execution; pricing table lives in .orchestray/config.json under mcp_server.cost_budget_check.pricing_table (single source of truth shared with bin/collect-agent-metrics.js)
• PM-driven per-orchestration events.jsonl rotation — at orchestration completion, the PM cleanup sequence atomically archives audit rows for the completed orchestration to .orchestray/history/<orch-id>/events.jsonl, keeping the live file bounded; the rotation is crash-safe via a three-state sentinel and idempotent on restart
• Explore dispatch coverage — Claude Code's built-in Explore and Task dispatches are now gated alongside Agent() spawns so their model routing decisions are enforced and audited
• GitHub Issue integration — orchestrate directly from GitHub issues via gh CLI
• CI/CD feedback loop — run CI after orchestration, auto-fix failures up to N retries
• Shift-left security — dedicated Security Engineer agent auto-invoked on security-sensitive tasks
• Pipeline templates — 10 workflow archetypes for consistent decomposition (bug fix, feature, refactor, migration, security audit, release, UX critique, platform Q&A, and more)
• TDD mode — test-first orchestration: architect → tester → developer → reviewer
• Mid-orchestration control — checkpoints between groups to review, modify, or abort
• User playbooks — project-specific instructions injected into agent delegation prompts
• Parallel execution — independent subtasks run concurrently via subagents
• Verify-fix loops — reviewer failures route back to developer with specific feedback
• Correction memory — learns from verify-fix loops, prevents repeated mistakes
• Cost prediction — estimates orchestration cost from historical data before execution
• Persistent specialists — dynamic agents that prove useful get saved for reuse
• Pattern learning — extracts reusable strategies from past orchestrations; patterns are project-local by default and can be shared across projects on the same machine via opt-in federation (federation.shared_dir_enabled: true)
• Cross-project pattern federation — ~/.orchestray/shared/patterns/ as machine-local hub; opt-in, sensitivity defaults to "private"; share via /orchestray:learn share, browse with /orchestray:learn list --shared
• SQLite FTS5 retrieval — BM25-ranked pattern lookup replaces Jaccard keyword scan; lazy index build; graceful fallback to Jaccard when native build unavailable (better-sqlite3 ^11, Node 22.5+ prefers node:sqlite)
• AI pattern curator — /orchestray:learn curate runs promote/merge/deprecate with tombstone rollback; undo via undo-last or undo <action-id>; sacred invariants: user-correction patterns never auto-deprecated, sensitivity: private patterns never auto-promoted
• Team features — shared config, shared patterns, daily/weekly cost budgets
• Agent Teams — opt-in dual-mode execution for tasks needing inter-agent communication
• Prompt tiering — 3-tier PM prompt architecture, significant token reduction for simple tasks
• Orchestration contracts — machine-verifiable quality gates with file ownership tracking
• Consequence forecasting — predicts downstream effects before execution, validates after
• ROI scorecard — per-orchestration value visibility with cost savings breakdown
• Diff-scoped review — reviewer focuses on changed files only, reducing noise
• Adaptive turn budgets — dynamic turn limits based on subtask complexity
• Agent introspection — Haiku distiller extracts reasoning traces after each agent, eliminating redundant exploration downstream
• Cognitive backpressure — agents signal confidence at checkpoints; PM reacts to low-confidence before proceeding
• Disagreement surfacing — design trade-offs from reviews presented as structured decisions, not verify-fix loops
• Drift Sentinel — architectural drift detection via auto-extracted invariants and static rules
• Visual Orchestration — multi-modal screenshot review for UI changes (opt-in)
• Full audit trail — per-agent tokens, cost breakdown, routing decisions, model savings
• Orchestration Threads — cross-session continuity via compressed thread summaries that carry forward decisions and open items
• Outcome Tracking — deferred quality validation via lazy probe execution when you return to delivered files
• Adaptive Personas — auto-generated project-tuned behavioral directives injected into agent delegations
• Replay Analysis — counterfactual reasoning on friction orchestrations to extract improvement patterns

Install

npx orchestray --global

This installs agents, skills, and hooks into ~/.claude/. No --plugin-dir flag needed — Claude Code discovers them automatically.

For project-local install:

npx orchestray --local

Uninstall

npx orchestray --global --uninstall

Post-install: enable context status bar (optional)

The context status bar for the main session is opt-in and lives in your user-scope Claude Code settings (not the plugin). Plugin settings cannot register a session-scope statusLine — Claude Code only honors agent and subagentStatusLine from a plugin. (Subagent status is already wired automatically by Orchestray's plugin settings — no action needed for that.)

To enable the main session status bar, add the following to ~/.claude/settings.json (create the file if it does not exist). Replace /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/orchestray with the real install path — ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} does NOT expand in user-scope settings, so you must substitute the absolute path to the plugin's bin/statusline.js.

{
  "statusLine": {
    "type": "command",
    "command": "node /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/orchestray/bin/statusline.js",
    "padding": 0
  }
}

For a global install via npx orchestray --global, the path is usually ~/.claude/plugins/orchestray/bin/statusline.js; resolve the absolute form with readlink -f ~/.claude/plugins/orchestray/bin/statusline.js on Linux/macOS.

Restart Claude Code after the edit. Verify with:

echo '{}' | node /ABSOLUTE/PATH/TO/orchestray/bin/statusline.js --dump-stdin

To disable without removing the entry, set context_statusbar.enabled: false in .orchestray/config.json.

Usage

Orchestray activates automatically on complex prompts. You can also use slash commands:

Agent roles

Configuration

Run /orchestray:config to view all settings. Key options:

complexity_threshold    Score threshold for auto-orchestration (default: 4)
auto_review             Auto-spawn reviewer after developer (default: true)
model_floor             Minimum model tier: haiku/sonnet/opus (default: sonnet)
security_review         Security review mode: auto/manual/off (default: auto)
tdd_mode                Prefer TDD orchestration flow (default: false)
confirm_before_execute  Show preview before execution (default: false)
enable_checkpoints      Pause between groups for review (default: false)
ci_command              CI check after orchestration (default: null)
post_to_issue           Comment results on GitHub issue (default: false)
daily_cost_limit_usd    Daily spending limit (default: null)
weekly_cost_limit_usd   Weekly spending limit (default: null)

mcp_enforcement.pattern_find              Hook enforcement mode: hook/prompt/allow (default: hook)
mcp_enforcement.kb_search                 Hook enforcement mode: hook/prompt/allow (default: hook)
mcp_enforcement.history_find_similar_tasks  Hook enforcement mode: hook/prompt/allow (default: hook)
mcp_enforcement.pattern_record_application  Enforcement mode for the pattern-record protocol: "hook-strict" (default) blocks
                                            the 2nd+ Agent() spawn until the PM records a pattern decision; "hook-warn" allows
                                            the spawn with an advisory event only. Set "hook-warn" to roll back the 2.0.16
                                            behavior change.
mcp_enforcement.unknown_tool_policy       block/warn/allow — policy for unrecognised dispatch names (default: block)
mcp_enforcement.global_kill_switch        true restores 2.0.11 enforcement behaviour; no session restart needed (default: false)

audit.max_events_bytes_for_scan   Maximum bytes of events.jsonl scanned per hook invocation;
                                  override with ORCHESTRAY_MAX_EVENTS_BYTES env var (default: 32 MB
                                  (vs the prior 2 MB cap); set lower on constrained environments)

mcp_server.tools.pattern_record_skip_reason  Enable the pattern_record_skip_reason MCP tool (default: true)
mcp_server.tools.cost_budget_check           Enable the cost_budget_check MCP tool (default: true)
mcp_server.tools.kb_write                    Enable the kb_write MCP tool for atomic artifact write + index.json update (default: true)
mcp_server.tools.routing_lookup              Enable the routing_lookup MCP tool (default: true)
mcp_server.tools.cost_budget_reserve         Enable the cost_budget_reserve MCP tool (default: true)
mcp_server.tools.pattern_deprecate           Enable the pattern_deprecate MCP tool (default: true)

mcp_server.max_per_task.ask_user             Maximum ask_user calls per task before rate-limit error (default: 20)
mcp_server.max_per_task.kb_write             Maximum kb_write calls per task before rate-limit error (default: 20)
mcp_server.max_per_task.pattern_record_application  Maximum pattern_record_application calls per task (default: 20)

mcp_server.cost_budget_check.pricing_table   Per-model pricing used by cost_budget_check and collect-agent-metrics;
                                              seeded on install with current Anthropic pricing (Haiku $1/$5,
                                              Sonnet $3/$15, Opus $5/$25); edit this block to update prices
                                              (single source of truth — eliminates two-table drift)

cost_budget_enforcement.enabled              Enable the PreToolUse cost-budget gate hook (default: false)
cost_budget_enforcement.hard_block           When true, gate blocks spawn on budget breach; when false, warns to
                                              stderr only (default: true — applies only when enabled: true)

mcp_server.cost_budget_reserve.ttl_minutes   How long a cost reservation stays valid, in minutes (default: 30,
                                              range: 1–1440)

routing_gate.auto_seed_on_miss               When true, an Agent() spawn with no matching routing entry is
                                              allowed and a synthesized entry is added with a stderr warning;
                                              when false, the gate hard-blocks unregistered spawns (default: true)

shield.r14_dedup_reads.enabled    Enable R14 cache-replay dedup for Read tool calls (default: true);
                                  set false to disable the context-shield hook without removing it

v2017_experiments.prompt_caching      "on" (default) | "off" — enables bin/cache-prefix-lock.js drift detection
                                      on every UserPromptSubmit. Monitors Block A stability; never modifies context.
                                      Set "off" to disable; no session restart needed.
v2017_experiments.adaptive_verbosity  "off" (default) | "on" — injects per-agent response-length budgets into
                                      delegation templates. Reviewer minimum floor: 600 tokens.
v2017_experiments.global_kill_switch  true disables all three v2017 behavior flags immediately, no session restart
                                      needed (default: false).

adaptive_verbosity.enabled            Enable adaptive response-length budgets (default: false; also controlled by
                                      v2017_experiments.adaptive_verbosity)
adaptive_verbosity.base_response_tokens    Base token budget for agent responses (default: 2000)
adaptive_verbosity.reducer_on_late_phase   Multiplier applied in late orchestration phases (default: 0.4, range: 0.0–1.0)

cache_choreography.enabled            Enable bin/cache-prefix-lock.js prefix-drift detection (default: false; also
                                      controlled by v2017_experiments.prompt_caching)

state_sentinel.pause_check_enabled    Enable the pause/cancel sentinel PreToolUse hook (default: true); set false
                                      to inert the entire sentinel check without removing the hook
state_sentinel.cancel_grace_seconds   Seconds after cancel.sentinel creation before spawns are blocked (default: 5)

anti_pattern_gate.min_decayed_confidence  Minimum decayed confidence for anti-pattern advisories to fire (default: 0.65);
                                          patterns below this threshold are suppressed even if they match

redo_flow.max_cascade_depth           Maximum W-item cascade depth for /orchestray:redo --cascade (default: 10)
redo_flow.commit_prefix               Git commit prefix used when redo produces a commit (default: "redo")

pattern_decay.default_half_life_days              Default confidence half-life in days (default: 90)
pattern_decay.category_overrides["anti-pattern"]  Half-life override for anti-pattern category (default: 180)

federation.shared_dir_enabled    Enable cross-project pattern sharing (default: false)
federation.sensitivity           Default sensitivity for new patterns: "private" | "shareable" (default: "private")
federation.shared_dir_path       Path to machine-local shared pattern hub (default: "~/.orchestray/shared")

curator.enabled                      Enable the AI pattern curator (default: true)
curator.self_escalation_enabled      Allow curator to escalate uncertain decisions to the user (default: true)
curator.pm_recommendation_enabled    Allow PM to recommend patterns for curation after orchestrations (default: true)
curator.tombstone_retention_runs     Number of past curator runs to keep tombstones for (default: 3)

The mcp_enforcement block is automatically added to .orchestray/config.json on the first UserPromptSubmit after upgrading to 2.0.13+ — no manual migration needed. On 2.0.14+, the same sweep also backfills the mcp_server.cost_budget_check.pricing_table block if absent. On 2.0.15+, the sweep additionally seeds the kb_write tool enable entry and the pattern_record_skip_reason / cost_budget_check enforcement keys for existing installs. On 2.0.16+, the sweep seeds routing_lookup, cost_budget_reserve, pattern_deprecate, max_per_task defaults (20 each), cost_budget_enforcement, cost_budget_reserve.ttl_minutes, and routing_gate.auto_seed_on_miss. On 2.0.17+, the sweep seeds the v2017_experiments block (all flags "off"), adaptive_verbosity, and cache_choreography. On 2.0.18+, the sweep also auto-strips the now-removed pm_prompt_variant and pm_prose_strip keys (emits a config_key_stripped audit event).

MCP resource schemes (2.0.16+). The MCP server exposes four read-only resource schemes: kb://, history://, pattern://, and orchestration://. The orchestration:// scheme provides live and historical state — orchestray:orchestration://current returns the active orchestration phase and task list; sub-resources expose routing decisions (/current/routing) and checkpoint state (/current/checkpoints). To browse an archived orchestration, use orchestray:orchestration://<orch-id>; the list() inventory includes the 5 most recent archived IDs. MCP tool count is 15 as of 2.1.0 (curator_tombstone added; 14 tools as of 2.0.17).

Routing-gate match key (2.0.15+). The routing gate matches spawns on (task_id, agent_type) rather than the previous three-field tuple — forgiving to description drift. If you observe gate blocks on valid Agent() spawns, confirm that routing.jsonl is written before the spawn call; the PM's orchestration prompt now enforces this as a mandatory step.

Health Signals

/orchestray:analytics includes a Health Signals section that:

• Warns when mcp_enforcement.global_kill_switch is true in .orchestray/config.json (the gate is bypassed; all MCP checkpoint enforcement is off)
• Scans recent events.jsonl for unpaired kill_switch_activated events to surface an active kill-switch window that was never closed
• Reports prefix_drift events from bin/cache-prefix-lock.js when Block A of agents/pm.md changed between sessions (2.0.17+, when v2017_experiments.prompt_caching is "on")

If the kill switch is active, the analytics output shows a bold warning with the config key and file path needed to clear it.

How it works

User prompt
    |
    v
Complexity scoring (0-12)
    |
    +-- Score < threshold --> Normal Claude Code
    |
    +-- Score >= threshold --> PM orchestration
            |
            v
        Task decomposition
            |
            v
        Model routing (Haiku/Sonnet/Opus per subtask)
            |
            v
        Agent spawning (parallel where safe)
            |
            v
        Result collection + verify-fix loops
            |
            v
        Pattern extraction + audit report

Runtime state

All orchestration state lives in .orchestray/ (gitignored):

.orchestray/
  state/          # Active orchestration state
    .block-a-hash           # Block A hex hash used by cache-prefix-lock.js (2.0.17+)
  kb/             # Shared knowledge base
  audit/          # Event logs and metrics
  history/        # Archived orchestrations
  metrics/        # Per-spawn and per-PM-turn JSONL metrics (gitignored, 2.0.17+)
    agent_metrics.jsonl           # Per-spawn rows + pm_turn rows
    orchestration_rollup.jsonl    # Per-orchestration rollup
    archive/                      # Rotated files (50 MB threshold)
  specialists/    # Persistent specialist registry
  patterns/       # Extracted learning patterns (gitignored)
  curator/        # Tombstone log for curator rollback (.orchestray/curator/tombstones.jsonl)
  playbooks/      # User-authored project playbooks
  config.json     # User configuration (gitignored)
  team-config.json # Team-shared configuration (version-controlled)
  team-patterns/  # Team-shared patterns (version-controlled)
  workflows/      # Custom YAML workflow definitions (version-controlled)

Requirements

• Claude Code v2.0.0+
• Claude Code 2.1.59+ recommended — earlier versions may produce outcome: "skipped" rows in the MCP checkpoint ledger; the context-shield hook also targets CC 2.1.59's PreToolUse payload shape
• Agent Teams features require v2.1.32+ (opt-in)

Agent Teams features (TaskCreated / TaskCompleted / TeammateIdle hooks) require Claude Code v2.1.32+ with the experimental flag CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS=1 set in the environment or settings.json. Without the flag, these hooks are installed but dormant — nothing breaks, they simply never fire.

Troubleshooting

Gate blocks first spawn after upgrade

If gate-agent-spawn.js blocks the PM's first Agent() call after upgrading to 2.0.13+, the most likely cause is that the automatic checkpoint-ledger migration has not yet run (it fires on the next UserPromptSubmit, not at install time). Try the following in order:

1. Wait for the sweep. On the next user prompt the bin/post-upgrade-sweep.js hook will run and repair any stale phase rows in .orchestray/state/mcp-checkpoint.jsonl. If the gate then passes, you're done.
2. Nuclear option — kill switch. Set mcp_enforcement.global_kill_switch: true (and a non-empty kill_switch_reason) in .orchestray/config.json to bypass the checkpoint gate entirely and complete the in-flight orchestration. Clear both fields once you're done. No session restart is required.
3. Manual sentinel reset. If the sweep appears stuck, delete .orchestray/state/.mcp-checkpoint-migrated-2013 to force it to re-run on the next prompt.

Reference: bin/post-upgrade-sweep.js is the automatic recovery path. mcp_enforcement.global_kill_switch is the always-available manual escape hatch.

License

MIT