[Feature Request] Optional team lead/orchestrator Agent for user-defined teams

[githb-ac]

Problem

OpenBot supports individual AI coworkers, channels, permissions, and per-Agent computers. Users running related Agents need an optional way to coordinate a specific team without manually managing every task and handoff.

This should not be a single global manager that controls every Bot. Each team may have separate work, credentials, tools, and goals—for example, newsletter, YouTube, website-operations, and marketing teams.

Feature request

Add an optional Team Lead / Orchestrator Agent that users can assign to one specific team.

The Team Lead coordinates only Bots explicitly assigned to its team. It has no access or authority outside that team unless the user explicitly grants it.

How it works

• A user creates a named team.
• A user selects which Bots belong to that team.
• A user may select any permitted Agent as the optional Team Lead.
• The Team Lead breaks work into tasks and delegates only to Bots in that team.
• Team members return completed work, status, blockers, and quality-check results to the Team Lead.
• The Team Lead requests revisions, reassigns failed tasks, and assembles the final output.
• Teams may work without a Team Lead.
• Each team may have its own independent Team Lead.
• A Bot may belong to multiple teams only when the user explicitly permits it.

Team Lead computer control

The Team Lead should have the same computer-use capability as other Bots:

• Its own dedicated computer, browser profile, files, shell, and workspace.
• Ability to research, inspect work, test outputs, and verify results.
• Ability to use only its explicitly granted tools through the existing policy gateway.
• Its computer remains separate from every team member’s computer by default.
• It cannot silently access a team member’s browser sessions, files, credentials, or private computer.
• It can receive approved artifacts from team members and inspect those artifacts in its own computer.
• The user may explicitly allow a Team Lead to request a temporary review link or shared artifact, but not unrestricted computer access.

Team isolation

• The Team Lead sees only its own team’s channels, task state, approved shared memory, and delegated artifacts.
• It cannot read other teams’ conversations, files, credentials, browser sessions, computers, memories, tool grants, or audit logs.
• It cannot delegate work outside its team.
• Removing a Bot from a team immediately removes the Team Lead’s ability to delegate to it.

Permissions and safeguards

• Team Leads do not gain extra tool permissions simply because they are leads.
• All Team Lead and team-member actions continue through OpenBot’s policy gateway, grants, and audit trail.
• The user can pause, replace, or remove a Team Lead at any time.
• A Team Lead cannot change another Bot’s instructions, credentials, policies, grants, or computer configuration.
• Team-level concurrency, token, cost, and tool-use budgets should be configurable.
• Delegation must have depth, retry, task-count, and time limits to prevent loops.

Suggested interface

• Add a Teams section next to the Agent list.
• Create Team: name, description, members, shared resources, and optional Team Lead.
• Team view: task board, member status, current handoffs, outputs, blocked work, computer status, and budget usage.
• Bot card: show team membership and Team Lead status.
• Allow “Delegate to Team Lead” when creating a new team task.

Example

Team: Website Operations

Team Lead: Website Operations Lead
Computer: Dedicated and isolated

Members:
- Website Builder
- Content Agent
- SEO Researcher
- Technical SEO Agent
- Analytics Agent
- Improvement Agent
- Report Agent

Scope:
- Website Operations channels only
- Website-specific repository and tools only
- Website-specific shared memory only
- No access to Newsletter, YouTube, or Marketing teams

The Team Lead can use its own computer to research issues, inspect reports, verify live website changes, test results, delegate tasks, request revisions, and prepare the weekly final report—without accessing other teams or taking over another Bot’s computer.

Acceptance criteria

1. Users can create multiple isolated teams.
2. Users can optionally assign a permitted Agent as a Team Lead for each team.
3. Every Team Lead receives its own isolated computer, browser profile, files, shell, and workspace.
4. A Team Lead can delegate tasks only to members of its own team.
5. Team members can return structured outputs and status updates to the Team Lead.
6. A Team Lead cannot access another Agent’s computer, private files, credentials, browser sessions, or private memory by default.
7. Teams remain isolated by default.
8. Existing policy, credential, tool-grant, computer, and audit controls apply to every action.
9. Users can pause, replace, or remove a Team Lead without deleting the team.
10. Teams can run without a Team Lead.
11. Delegation loops have configurable depth, retry, task, time, and budget limits.

Why this matters

This would enable practical, self-contained multi-agent teams without creating a central manager for every Agent. It preserves OpenBot’s core model—per-Agent computers, controlled tool access, policy enforcement, and auditing—while giving users optional team-level orchestration.

[davidmckayv]

Closing this. The generic primitive it asks for already shipped in 0.0.5 as bot-to-bot handoff (#266): a Bot with a `bot` grant is offered `message_bot` to delegate work to another Bot (which answers as itself, under its own role/tools/grants), plus `ask_person` to escalate to a human, all with depth/fan-out caps, cycle protection, and audit. A "team lead / orchestrator" is that same `message_bot` chain with a coordinator role prompt — a forker can build it today.

What's left in the request beyond that is a Teams product surface (a first-class Teams entity, membership management, per-team channels/memory/budgets). That's product-creep for a template: it reifies an org-chart feature into the generic core rather than exposing a reusable primitive, which the handoff already does. Closing as out of scope; the capability is available via handoff.