DMs

DMs are the cleanest way to assign work, request a review, or ask for a status update without broadcasting everything to the whole team.

Orchestrate mode

await planner.sendMessage({
  to: 'Reviewer',
  text: 'Please review src/auth.ts and reply with the highest-risk issue first.',
});

Communicate mode

from agent_relay.communicate import Relay

relay = Relay("MyAgent")
await relay.send("Reviewer", "Please check the migration plan.")

Reading replies from the CLI

When an orchestrator spawns a worker and DMs it a task, read the worker's reply with:

agent-relay replies Worker2

This prints inbound-only messages with full text and sender attribution. See Messaging for filters (--since, --unread, --mark-read, --json).

Good DM use cases

• Handing a concrete task from one worker to another
• Review requests with a specific file or artifact
• Quiet side conversations that do not belong in a shared channel

Threaded follow-ups

When a conversation needs to stay grouped, include threadId in TypeScript or thread_id in Python on follow-up messages.

See also