A Team in a Workflow

A workflow's Agent step can hold a Team agent, so one step of a fixed workflow can be done by a team that decides for itself how to split the work.

Pick a Team in the Agent step

The Agent step's picker lists what a step can hold, under three headings: Agents, Teams and Workflows. A Team's entry says how it works (Team · 3 members, as a team). On the canvas the step says what it holds, as Agent · Team.

The step's setup shows the team it holds, read-only:

• Members: the agents it may hand work to, or Any agent.
• Works: As a team: 3 at once, 6 tasks (and the spend limit, if it has one), or One at a time: its lead hands work to one member and waits.
• Time: the step's own time, which the team works inside.
• Price, on Cloud: 1 credit, plus 1 for each member task, and the most the step can cost.

To change the team, open its agent: Change the team on its agent.

The team inside the step

• Time. The team has the step's timeout (300 seconds unless you set it). Its lead is told what is left, and near the end no more work is handed out, so the step ends with an answer rather than a timeout.
• The run's cap. A workflow's Cost per run reaches into the step: its money limit is checked before every model call the lead, members or helpers make, and its credit limit before every task is handed out. The task that would pass the cap is refused, and the lead finishes with what it has.
• The team's own limits hold too: its Task budget per turn and Spend limit per turn, from its agent.

Watching and answering on the run page

A Team step shows its members' lines on the run's page, as in chat: Message and Stop for each member, and the task list.

A member that needs approval asks in its own line while the others keep working. Each question has its own id and is answered on its own, on the run page, in the bell, or through the API with question_id (see When team members need approval).

A Team or a Parallel?

A Parallel of Agent steps is the predictable path: you fix the branches, each one runs, and the cost is known before the run. A Team is the adaptive one: the lead decides who does what, and the cost depends on how many tasks it hands out, up to its budget. Use a Parallel when you know the parts; use a Team when the job decides them.

Two Team steps inside one Parallel take turns rather than running side by side, so a member's question can always be asked.

What it costs on Cloud

A Team step is 1 credit, plus 1 for each member or helper task it ran, and its model tokens. A one-at-a-time Team is priced the same way, per hand-off. The cost estimate before a run shows a Team step as a range: from the lead plus one task per member, up to its whole task budget.