An agent's attached_teams list (in agent.json) defines which other teams it may dispatch to during a single chat turn. The agent uses the Claude Agent SDK's Task tool to send a sub-task and wait for the result before continuing.
When to attach a team
- The agent needs a depth-2 specialist for a slice of the job (e.g. CRO dispatches to a "Pricing Specialist" team to do the actual quote math).
- You want a parent agent to coordinate without holding the specialist's full prompt in its own system prompt.
How dispatch works
- Parent agent decides to dispatch.
- Calls Task tool with the sub-team slug + the question.
- Sub-team runs as its own Claude Agent SDK session with its own spokes.
- Result returns as a tool message; parent integrates and continues.
Limits
The default cap is 40 tools across the union of the parent + all attached MCPs + spokes. The Agent SDK truncates tool descriptions to 180 characters to stay under provider limits. See Permissions.