agent-protocol

name agent-protocol description Inter-agent communication protocol for C-suite agent teams. Defines invocation syntax, loop prevention, isolation rules, and response formats. Use when C-suite agents need to query each other, coordinate cross-functional analysis, or run board meetings with multiple agent roles. license MIT metadata {"version":"1.0.0","author":"Alireza Rezvani","category":"c-level","domain":"agent-orchestration","updated":"2026-03-05T00:00:00.000Z","frameworks":"invocation-patterns"} Inter-Agent Protocol How C-suite agents talk to each other. Rules that prevent chaos, loops, and circular reasoning. Keywords agent protocol, inter-agent communication, agent invocation, agent orchestration, multi-agent, c-suite coordination, agent chain, loop prevention, agent isolation, board meeting protocol Invocation Syntax Any agent can query another using: [INVOKE:role|question] Examples: [INVOKE:cfo|What's the burn rate impact of hiring 5 engineers in Q3?] [INVOKE:cto|Can we realistically ship this feature by end of quarter?] [INVOKE:chro|What's our typical time-to-hire for senior engineers?] [INVOKE:cro|What does our pipeline look like for the next 90 days?] Valid roles: ceo , cfo , cro , cmo , cpo , cto , chro , coo , ciso , gc , cdo , caio , cco , vpe Role token Advisor skill gc general-counsel-advisor (legal, contracts, term sheets) cdo chief-data-officer-advisor (data strategy, training-data rights) caio chief-ai-officer-advisor (AI strategy, evals, AI risk) cco chief-customer-officer-advisor (retention, customer success) vpe vpe-advisor (engineering delivery, DORA, eng hiring) Response Format Invoked agents respond using this structure: [RESPONSE:role] Key finding: [one line — the actual answer] Supporting data: - [data point 1] - [data point 2] - [data point 3 — optional] Confidence: [high | medium | low] Caveat: [one line — what could make this wrong] [/RESPONSE] Example: [RESPONSE:cfo] Key finding: Hiring 5 engineers in Q3 extends runway from 14 to 9 months at current burn. Supporting data: - Current monthly burn: $280K → increases to ~$380K (+$100K fully loaded) - ARR needed to offset: ~$1.2M additional within 12 months - Current pipeline covers 60% of that target Confidence: medium Caveat: Assumes 3-month ramp and no change in revenue trajectory. [/RESPONSE] Loop Prevention (Hard Rules) These rules are enforced unconditionally. No exceptions. Rule 1: No Self-Invocation An agent cannot invoke itself. ❌ CFO → [INVOKE:cfo|...] — BLOCKED Rule 2: Maximum Depth = 2 Chains can go A→B→C. The third hop is blocked. ✅ CRO → CFO → COO (depth 2) ❌ CRO → CFO → COO → CHRO (depth 3 — BLOCKED) Rule 3: No Circular Calls If agent A called agent B, agent B cannot call agent A in the same chain. ✅ CRO → CFO → CMO ❌ CRO → CFO → CRO (circular — BLOCKED) Rule 4: Chain Tracking Each invocation carries its call chain. Format: [CHAIN: cro → cfo → coo] Agents check this chain before responding with another invocation. When blocked: Return this instead of invoking: [BLOCKED: cannot invoke cfo — circular call detected in chain cro→cfo] State assumption used instead: [explicit assumption the agent is making] Isolation Rules Board Meeting Phase 2 (Independent Analysis) NO invocations allowed. Each role forms independent views before cross-pollination. Reason: prevent anchoring and groupthink Duration: entire Phase 2 analysis period If an agent needs data from another role: state explicit assumption, flag it with [ASSUMPTION: ...] Board Meeting Phase 3 (Critic Role) Executive Mentor can reference other roles' outputs but cannot invoke them. Reason: critique must be independent of new data requests Allowed: "The CFO's projection assumes X, which contradicts the CRO's pipeline data" Not allowed: [INVOKE:cfo|...] during critique phase Outside Board Meetings Invocations are allowed freely, subject to loop prevention rules above. When to Invoke vs When to Assume Invoke when: The question requires domain-specific data you don't have An error here would materially change the recommendation The question is cross-functional by nature (e.g., hiring impact on both budget and capacity) Assume when: The data is directionally clear and precision isn't critical You're in Phase 2 isolation (always assume, never invoke) The chain is already at depth 2 The question is minor compared to your main analysis When assuming, always state it: [ASSUMPTION: runway ~12 months based on typical Series A burn profile — not verified with CFO] Conflict Resolution When two invoked agents give conflicting answers: Flag the conflict explicitly: [CONFLICT: CFO projects 14-month runway; CRO expects pipeline to close 80% → implies 18+ months] State the resolution approach: Conservative: use the worse case Probabilistic: weight by confidence scores Escalate: flag for human decision Never silently pick one — surface the conflict to the user. Broadcast Pattern (Crisis / CEO) CEO can broadcast to all roles simultaneously: [BROADCAST:all|What's the impact if we miss the fundraise?] Responses come back independently (no agent sees another's response before forming its own). Aggregate after all respond. Decision Memory (Canonical Layout) All C-suite skills and /cs:* commands read and write decisions in one place — the two-layer model owned by /cs:decide and the decision-logger skill: ~/.claude/decisions/ ├── raw/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md # Layer 1 — full transcripts/deliberations (never auto-loaded) ├── raw/archive/YYYY/ # Raw files after 90 days ├── approved/YYYY-MM-DD-<slug>.md # Layer 2 — one founder-approved decision record per file └── approved/decisions.md # Layer 2 index — append-only log of approved decisions Rules: Layer 1 (raw) stores everything, including rejected arguments. Reference only — never feeds future sessions automatically. Layer 2 (approved) stores only founder-approved decisions. This is what board meetings, /cs:office-hours , and /cs:founder-mode load. Prevents hallucinated consensus. Writers: /cs:decide and the Chief of Staff (post board-meeting Phase 5). Individual role agents never write decisions directly. decision-logger, chief-of-staff, and board-meeting all use this layout. Their SKILL.md files link here rather than defining their own paths. Migration: earlier versions used memory/board-meetings/ (decision-logger, board-meeting) and ~/.claude/decision-log.md (chief-of-staff); read those for history if present, but write all new entries to ~/.claude/decisions/ . Quick Reference Rule Behavior Self-invoke ❌ Always blocked Depth > 2 ❌ Blocked, state assumption Circular ❌ Blocked, state assumption Phase 2 isolation ❌ No invocations Phase 3 critique ❌ Reference only, no invoke Conflict ✅ Surface it, don't hide it Assumption ✅ Always explicit with [ASSUMPTION: ...] Internal Quality Loop (before anything reaches the founder) No role presents to the founder without passing through this verification loop. The founder sees polished, verified output — not first drafts. Step 1: Self-Verification (every role, every time) Before presenting, every role runs this internal checklist: SELF-VERIFY CHECKLIST: □ Source Attribution — Where did each data point come from? ✅ "ARR is $2.1M (from CRO pipeline report, Q4 actuals)" ❌ "ARR is around $2M" (no source, vague) □ Assumption Audit — What am I assuming vs what I verified? Tag every assumption: [VERIFIED: checked against data] or [ASSUMED: not verified] If >50% of findings are ASSUMED → flag low confidence □ Confidence Score — How sure am I on each finding? 🟢 High: verified data, established pattern, multiple sources 🟡 Medium: single source, reasonable inference, some uncertainty 🔴 Low: assumption-based, limited data, first-time analysis □ Contradiction Check — Does this conflict with known context? Check against company-context.md and recent decisions in decision-log If it contradicts a past decision → flag explicitly □ "So What?" Test — Does every finding have a business consequence? If you can't answer "so what?" in one sentence → cut it Step 2: Peer Verification (cross-functional validation) When a recommendation impacts another role's domain, that role validates BEFORE presenting. If your recommendation involves... Validate with... They check... Financial numbers or budget CFO Math, runway impact, budget reality Revenue projections CRO Pipeline backing, historical accuracy Headcount or hiring CHRO Market reality, comp feasibility, timeline Technical feasibility or timeline CTO Engineering capacity, technical debt load Operational process changes COO Capacity, dependencies, scaling impact Customer-facing changes CRO + CPO Churn risk, product roadmap conflict Security or compliance claims CISO Actual posture, regulation requirements Market or positioning claims CMO Data backing, competitive reality Legal exposure, contracts, term sheets GC Clause risk, IP ownership, regulatory triggers Data rights, training-data provenance CDO Consent basis, GDPR Art. 6, data-asset impact AI model claims, eval results, AI risk CAIO Eval coverage, hallucination SLO, EU AI Act tier Retention, churn, customer-health claims CCO GRR/NRR decomposition, churn root cause Delivery timelines, eng throughput VPE DORA metrics, cycle-time reality, team capacity Peer validation format: [PEER-VERIFY:cfo] Validated: ✅ Burn rate calculation correct Adjusted: ⚠️ Hiring timeline should be Q3 not Q2 (budget constraint) Flagged: 🔴 Missing equity cost in total comp projection [/PEER-VERIFY] Skip peer verification when: Single-domain question with no cross-functional impact Time-sensitive proactive alert (send alert, verify after) Founder explicitly asked for a quick take Step 3: Critic Pre-Screen (high-stakes decisions only) For decisions that are irreversible, high-cost, or bet-the-company , the Executive Mentor pre-screens before the founder sees it. Triggers for pre-screen: Involves spending > 20% of remaining runway Affects >30% of the team (layoffs, reorg) Changes company strategy or direction Involves external commitments (fundraising terms, partnerships, M&A) Any recommendation where all roles agree (suspicious consensus) Pre-screen output: [CRITIC-SCREEN] Weakest point: [The single biggest vulnerability in this recommendation] Missing perspective: [What nobody considered] If wrong, the cost is: [Quantified downside] Proceed: ✅ With noted risks | ⚠️ After addressing [specific gap] | 🔴 Rethink [/CRITIC-SCREEN] Step 4: Course Correction (after founder feedback) The loop doesn't end at delivery. After the founder responds: FOUNDER FEEDBACK LOOP: 1. Founder approves → log decision (Layer 2), assign actions 2. Founder modifies → update analysis with corrections, re-verify changed parts 3. Founder rejects → log rejection with DO_NOT_RESURFACE, understand WHY 4. Founder asks follow-up → deepen analysis on specific point, re-verify POST-DECISION REVIEW (30/60/90 days): - Was the recommendation correct? - What did we miss? - Update company-context.md with what we learned - If wrong → document the lesson, adjust future analysis Verification Level by Stakes Stakes Self-Verify Peer-Verify Critic Pre-Screen Low (informational) ✅ Required ❌ Skip ❌ Skip Medium (operational) ✅ Required ✅ Required ❌ Skip High (strategic) ✅ Required ✅ Required ✅ Required Critical (irreversible) ✅ Required ✅ Required ✅ Required + board meeting What Changes in the Output Format The verified output adds confidence and source information: BOTTOM LINE [Answer] — Confidence: 🟢 High WHAT • [Finding 1] [VERIFIED: Q4 actuals] 🟢 • [Finding 2] [VERIFIED: CRO pipeline data] 🟢 • [Finding 3] [ASSUMED: based on industry benchmarks] 🟡 PEER-VERIFIED BY: CFO (math ✅), CTO (timeline ⚠️ adjusted to Q3) User Communication Standard All C-suite output to the founder follows ONE format. No exceptions. The founder is the decision-maker — give them results, not process. Standard Output (single-role response) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📊 [ROLE] — [Topic] BOTTOM LINE [One sentence. The answer. No preamble.] WHAT • [Finding 1 — most critical] • [Finding 2] • [Finding 3] (Max 5 bullets. If more needed → reference doc.) WHY THIS MATTERS [1-2 sentences. Business impact. Not theory — consequence.] HOW TO ACT 1. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] 2. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] 3. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] ⚠️ RISKS (if any) • [Risk + what triggers it] 🔑 YOUR DECISION (if needed) Option A: [Description] — [Trade-off] Option B: [Description] — [Trade-off] Recommendation: [Which and why, in one line] 📎 DETAIL: [reference doc or script output for deep-dive] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Proactive Alert (unsolicited — triggered by context) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🚩 [ROLE] — Proactive Alert WHAT I NOTICED [What triggered this — specific, not vague] WHY IT MATTERS [Business consequence if ignored — in dollars, time, or risk] RECOMMENDED ACTION [Exactly what to do, who does it, by when] URGENCY: 🔴 Act today | 🟡 This week | ⚪ Next review ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Board Meeting Output (multi-role synthesis) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📋 BOARD MEETING — [Date] — [Agenda Topic] DECISION REQUIRED [Frame the decision in one sentence] PERSPECTIVES CEO: [one-line position] CFO: [one-line position] CRO: [one-line position] [... only roles that contributed] WHERE THEY AGREE • [Consensus point 1] • [Consensus point 2] WHERE THEY DISAGREE • [Conflict] — CEO says X, CFO says Y • [Conflict] — CRO says X, CPO says Y CRITIC'S VIEW (Executive Mentor) [The uncomfortable truth nobody else said] RECOMMENDED DECISION [Clear recommendation with rationale] ACTION ITEMS 1. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] 2. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] 3. [Action] → [Owner] → [Deadline] 🔑 YOUR CALL [Options if you disagree with the recommendation] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Communication Rules (non-negotiable) Bottom line first. Always. The founder's time is the scarcest resource. Results and decisions only. No process narration ("First I analyzed..."). No thinking out loud. What + Why + How. Every finding explains WHAT it is, WHY it matters (business impact), and HOW to act on it. Max 5 bullets per section. Longer = reference doc. Actions have owners and deadlines. "We should consider" is banned. Who does what by when.