Open protocol for AI agent coordination

Give your AI agents
a chief of staff.

Coordinate agent teams through a shared folder of markdown files. Works with any AI runtime.

$ claude plugins install cortex@agentweave
or see adapters for Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenCode
You --> Chief of Staff (Claude Code) --> Team Directory (markdown) <-- Worker Agents (Claude Code)

How it works

No databases. No APIs. No message queues. Just markdown files in a shared folder.

Chief of Staff

A coordinator agent that receives your instructions, dispatches tasks to workers, monitors progress, and sends daily briefings.

Worker Agents

Project-specific agents that poll for work on a heartbeat, execute tasks, and report status back through the shared folder.

Team Directory

A shared folder of markdown files that acts as the message bus. Agent notes, project notes, and work queues. No direct agent-to-agent communication.

The work queue

Tasks flow through plain markdown. Chief of staff writes them, workers execute them.

## Work Queue

### 2026-03-28T10:00
**Task:** Add Stripe webhook endpoint
**Scope:** Create POST /webhooks/stripe, verify signature
**Status:** ready **Status:** in-progress **Status:** done
Summary: Implemented webhook with signature verification. Added tests.

Quick start

Get a coordinated agent team running in minutes.

Step 1

Install the plugin

Add the marketplace source and install Cortex.

claude plugins marketplace add https://github.com/agentweave/cortex --scope user claude plugins install cortex@agentweave
Step 2

Run setup

Creates your team directory, config, and chief of staff agent.

/setup
Step 3

Join as chief of staff

In the chief of staff's project directory. Heartbeat starts automatically.

/join Chief of Staff
Step 4

Add worker agents

Register the agent, then onboard it in its project directory.

/register Billing Dev /join Billing Dev

Open protocol, any runtime

Cortex ships as a Claude Code plugin, but the protocol is runtime-agnostic. Any agent that can read and write files can join the team.

Claude Code
Codex
Cursor
Gemini CLI
OpenCode
Any agent

Ready to coordinate?

Cortex is open source and free. Read the protocol spec or jump straight in.

View on GitHub