delegate-ai 0.2.6

Agentic team management system

Not a copilot. A team that ships.
_{AI agents that plan, code, review each other's work, and merge — running locally on your machine.}

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Delegate creates a persistent team of AI agents on your local machine. Describe what you want in plain English — Delegate breaks it into tasks, assigns them to agents, manages code reviews between them, and merges the result. You watch it all happen in a real-time web UI, or check in later. The team remembers your codebase across tasks.

Note: Delegate currently works with local git repositories — agents commit directly to branches on your machine. Support for remote repositories (GitHub, GitLab), external tools (Slack, Linear), and CI/CD integrations is coming soon - stay tuned!

How is this different?

Most AI coding tools give you one agent, one task, then it's gone. Delegate gives you a team that persists — agents accumulate context about your codebase, your patterns, and each other over weeks of work. And unlike terminal-based tools, you get a browser UI where you can watch agents work in real-time, review diffs, approve merges, and run shell commands — all without leaving the browser.

Quickstart

Requires Python 3.12+. Check with python3 --version. On macOS: brew install python@3.13 · On Ubuntu: sudo apt install python3.12 · Or download from python.org.

pip install delegate-ai
cd to/directory/having/git/repo # optional, just makes config easier
delegate start # needs claude code login or ANTHROPIC_API_KEY in ENV

That's it. Delegate will create a default team with a manager + 5 engineer agents and open the console in the browser. You tell delegate agent what to build and it handles the rest.

What happens when you send a task

You: "Add a /health endpoint that returns uptime and version"

1. Manager breaks it down, creates one or more tasks, assigns to available agents
2. Agent gets a git worktree, writes the code, runs tests, submits for review
3. Reviewer (another agent) checks the diff, runs the test suite, approves or rejects
4. You approve the merge (or set repos to auto-merge)
5. Merge worker rebases onto main, runs pre-merge checks, fast-forward merges

All of this is visible in real-time in the web UI — tasks moving, agents working, code being reviewed.

Key features

Persistent teams, not disposable agents. Create a team once, use it across hundreds of tasks. Agents maintain memory — journals, notes, context files — so they learn your codebase, conventions, and patterns over time.

Works with your existing setup. Delegate automatically reads claude.md, AGENTS.md, .cursorrules, and .github/copilot-instructions.md from your repos — no migration needed.

One team per project - Spin up a team for each project, running for as long as you need with zero cost when not in use, all on your local filesystem.

Browser UI with real-time visibility. Watch agents pick up tasks, write code, and review each other's work — live. Approve merges, browse diffs, inspect files, and run shell commands — all from the browser.

Full development lifecycle. Agents don't just write code but also review each other's code. By default tasks flow through todo → in_progress → in_review → in_approval → merging → done with agents handling each stage.

Customizable workflows. Not happy with default task workflow? Define your own task lifecycle in Python:

from delegate.workflow import Stage, workflow

class Deploy(Stage):
    label = "Deploying"
    def enter(self, ctx):
        ctx.run_script("./deploy.sh")

@workflow(name="with-deploy", version=1)
def my_workflow():
    return [Todo, InProgress, InReview, Deploy, Done]

Real git, real branches. Each agent works in isolated git worktrees. No magic file systems. Branches are named delegate/<team>/T0001. You can inspect them anytime.

Mix models by role. All agents default to Claude Sonnet. Override per agent with --model opus for tasks requiring stronger reasoning. Configurable at any time.

Team charter in markdown. Edit a markdown file to set review standards, communication norms, and team values.

Built-in shell. Run any command from the chat with /shell ls -la. Output renders inline.

Installable as an app. Delegate's web UI is a Progressive Web App — install it from your browser for a native app experience with its own window and dock/taskbar icon.

Architecture

~/.delegate/
├── members/              # Human identities (from git config)
│   └── nikhil.yaml
├── teams/
│   └── my-project/
│       ├── agents/       # delegate (manager) + engineer agents
│       │   ├── delegate/ # Manager agent — your delegate
│       │   ├── alice/    # Engineer agent with worktrees, logs, memory
│       │   └── bob/
│       ├── repos/        # Symlinks to your real git repos
│       ├── shared/       # Team-wide shared files
│       └── workflows/    # Registered workflow definitions
└── db.sqlite             # Messages, tasks, events

Agents are Claude Code instances. A delegate agent manages other agents on your behalf. Engineers work in git worktrees and communicate through a message bus. The daemon polls for messages and dispatches agent turns as async tasks. All storage is in local files - either plaintext or sqlite.

There's no magic. You can ls into any agent's directory and see exactly what they're doing. Worklogs, memory journals, context files — it's all plain text.

Sandboxing & Permissions

Delegate restricts what agents can do through six independent layers — defense-in-depth so no single bypass compromises the system:

1. Write-path isolation (can_use_tool callback)

Every agent turn runs with a programmatic guard that inspects each tool call before it executes. The Edit and Write tools are only allowed to target files inside explicitly permitted directories:

Role	Allowed write paths
Manager	Entire team directory (~/.delegate/teams/<team>/)
Engineer	Own agent directory, task worktree(s), team shared/ folder

Writes outside these paths are denied with an error message — the model sees the denial and can adjust.

The same guard also enforces a bash deny-list — commands containing dangerous substrings are blocked before execution:

sqlite3, DROP TABLE, DELETE FROM, rm -rf .git

This prevents agents from directly manipulating the database or destroying git metadata, even if they attempt it via bash.

2. Disallowed git commands (disallowed_tools)

Git commands that could change branch topology, interact with remotes, or rewrite history are hidden from agents entirely at the SDK level:

git rebase, git merge, git pull, git push, git fetch,
git checkout, git switch, git reset --hard, git worktree,
git branch, git remote, git filter-branch, git reflog expire

Agents never see these tools and cannot invoke them — branch management is handled by Delegate's merge worker instead.

3. OS-level bash sandbox (macOS Seatbelt / Linux bubblewrap)

All bash commands run inside an OS-level sandbox provided by Claude Code's native sandboxing. The sandbox restricts filesystem writes to:

• The team's working directory (~/.delegate/teams/<uuid>/) — not the entire DELEGATE_HOME, so protected/ and other teams' directories are never writable from bash
• Platform temp directory (/tmp on Unix, %TEMP% on Windows)
• Each registered repo's .git/ directory — so git add / git commit work inside worktrees without opening the repo working tree to arbitrary bash writes. All agents (including managers) get .git/ access.

Even if the model crafts a bash command that bypasses the tool-level guards, the kernel blocks the write. Agents cannot git into unregistered repos (the sandbox blocks writes to their .git/), and they cannot write to the working tree of any repo via bash (only .git/ is allowed).

4. Network domain allowlist

Agents' network access is controlled via a domain allowlist stored in protected/network.yaml (outside the sandbox, so agents can't tamper with it). By default, all domains are allowed (*). When restricted to specific domains, the sandbox blocks outbound connections to anything not on the list.

delegate network show                    # View current allowlist
delegate network allow api.github.com    # Add a domain
delegate network disallow example.com    # Remove a domain
delegate network reset                   # Reset to wildcard (allow all)

5. In-process MCP tools (protected data access)

Agents interact with the database, task system, and mailbox through in-process MCP tools that run inside the daemon (outside the agent sandbox). This means agents never need shell access to protected/ — all operations go through validated code paths. Agent identity is baked into each tool closure, preventing impersonation: an agent cannot send messages as another agent or access data outside its team.

6. Daemon-managed worktree lifecycle

Git operations that modify branch topology — git worktree add, git worktree remove, branch creation, rebase, and merge — run exclusively in the daemon process, which is unsandboxed. Agents never run these commands directly. When a manager creates a task with --repo, only the DB record and branch name are saved; the daemon creates the actual worktree before dispatching any turns to the assigned worker. This clean separation means agents can write code and commit inside their worktrees but cannot create, remove, or manipulate worktrees or branches.

Together these six layers mean: the model can only write to directories Delegate explicitly allows, cannot touch your git branch topology, cannot access the database directly, cannot contact unauthorized domains, cannot escape the sandbox even through creative bash commands, and all infrastructure operations happen in a controlled daemon context.

Configuration

Environment

# Required — your Anthropic API key
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

# Optional
DELEGATE_HOME=~/.delegate    # Override home directory

CLI commands

delegate start [--port 3548] [--env-file .env]   # Start everything
delegate stop                                     # Stop the daemon
delegate status                                   # Check if running

delegate team add backend --agents 3 --repo /path/to/repo
delegate team list
delegate repo add myteam /path/to/another-repo --test-cmd "pytest -x"
delegate agent add myteam carol --role engineer

delegate workflow init myteam                     # Register default workflow
delegate workflow add myteam ./my-workflow.py     # Register custom workflow

delegate network show                             # View network allowlist
delegate network allow api.github.com             # Allow a domain
delegate network disallow example.com             # Remove a domain
delegate network reset                            # Reset to allow all

Set Auto Approval

By default, Delegate expects you to do a final code review and give explicit approval before merging into your local repo's main. If you wanted, you can set it to auto approval:

delegate repo set-approval myteam my-repo auto

How it works

The daemon is the central loop:

• Polls agent inboxes for unread messages
• Dispatches turns (one agent at a time per agent, many agents in parallel)
• Processes the merge queue
• Serves the web UI and SSE streams

Agents are stateless between turns. Each turn:

1. Read inbox messages
2. Execute actions (create tasks, write code, send messages, run commands)
3. Write context summary for next turn

The workflow engine is a Python DSL. Each task is stamped with a workflow version at creation. Stages define enter/exit/action/assign hooks. Built-in functions (ctx.setup_worktree(), ctx.create_review(), ctx.merge_task(), etc.) handle git operations, reviews, and merging.

Development

git clone https://github.com/nikhilgarg28/delegate.git
cd delegate
uv sync
uv run delegate start --foreground

Tests

# Python tests
uv run pytest tests/ -x -q

# Playwright E2E tests (needs npm install first)
npm install
npx playwright install
npx playwright test

Roadmap

Delegate is under active development. Here's what's coming:

• Sandboxing & permissions — ✅ shipped in v0.2.5 (OS-level sandbox + write-path isolation + git command restrictions).
• More powerful workflows — conditional transitions, parallel stages, human-in-the-loop checkpoints, and webhook triggers.
• External tool integrations — GitHub (PRs, issues), Slack (notifications, commands), Linear (task sync), and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, etc.).
• Remote repositories — push to and pull from remote Git hosts, not just local repos.
• Exportable team templates — package a team's configuration (agents, workflows, charter, repo settings) as a shareable template so others can spin up an identical setup in one command.

If any of these are particularly important to you, open an issue — it helps prioritize.

About

Delegate is built by a solo developer as a side project — and built with Delegate. No VC funding, no growth targets — just a tool I wanted for myself and decided to open-source. MIT licensed, free forever.

If you find it useful, star the repo or say hi in an issue. Bug reports and contributions are welcome.

License

MIT