Cao Supervisor Protocols

Cao Supervisor Protocols is an AI Engineering skill for Claude Code, published by awslabs in cli-agent-orchestrator.

1.1K stars226 forkson awslabs/cli-agent-orchestratorAdded 2026/08/21+1% in starsRepository updated 2026/08/21

agent-orchestrationai-agentsai-coding-assistantantigravityclaude-codecodexcopilot-clicursor-clideveloper-toolshermeskimi-clikiromcpmodel-context-protocolmulti-agent-systemsopencodeorchestrationpythontmux

Install in seconds

Install Cao Supervisor Protocols

Copy Cao Supervisor Protocols into your Claude Code skills folder. Run the command in your terminal, or review the source on GitHub before installing.

terminal

npx degit https://github.com/awslabs/cli-agent-orchestrator/tree/main/skills/cao-supervisor-protocols ~/.claude/skills/cao-supervisor-protocols

Requires Node.js. Downloads this skill only — not the rest of the repository — into your Claude Code skills folder.

Without Node.js

git clone https://github.com/awslabs/cli-agent-orchestrator.git

Clones the whole repository, then copy the skill’s own directory into your skills folder yourself.

In this catalog

Source file: skills/cao-supervisor-protocols/SKILL.md in awslabs/cli-agent-orchestrator
Installs to: ~/.claude/skills/cao-supervisor-protocols
Collection: One of 18 skills cataloged from this repository
Category: AI Engineering — 2451 skills

What Cao Supervisor Protocols does

Cao Supervisor Protocols covers dispatching worker agents with assign and handoff, plus idle inbox delivery and prompt responses in CLI Agent Orchestrator. Use it when supervising parallel or blocking tasks through CAO.

Cao Supervisor Protocols is cataloged under AI Engineering on DirSkills. Cao Supervisor Protocols comes from a repository tagged agent-orchestration, ai-agents, ai-coding-assistant, antigravity and claude-code.

Documentation

README

Excerpt

CAO Supervisor Protocols

Use this skill when supervising worker agents through CLI Agent Orchestrator.

This skill covers how supervisors should dispatch work, decide between assign and handoff, and receive worker results without blocking inbox delivery.

Core MCP Tools

From cao-mcp-server, supervisors orchestrate work with:

assign(agent_profile, message) for asynchronous work that returns immediately
handoff(agent_profile, message) for synchronous work that blocks until the worker finishes
send_message(message, receiver_id=None) for direct messages — receiver_id defaults to the terminal that created yours via handoff/assign
answer_user_prompt(terminal_id, answer) for answering a Hermes worker that reports waiting_user_answer

This is the opening of the README. Read the full README on GitHub.

Frequently asked about Cao Supervisor Protocols

What else does awslabs publish alongside Cao Supervisor Protocols?
Cao Supervisor Protocols is one of 18 skills that DirSkills catalogs from awslabs/cli-agent-orchestrator, the repository it ships in. Its siblings there include AG-UI Author, AI-DLC Portfolio and Add UI To MCP Server. Each one is a separate skill with its own page in this directory, installs the same way Cao Supervisor Protocols does, and is maintained by awslabs in that same repository. The rest of the collection is listed on the awslabs/cli-agent-orchestrator page.
How does Cao Supervisor Protocols compare to other AI Engineering skills?
Cao Supervisor Protocols ranks #1270 by stars among the 2451 AI Engineering skills in this catalog. The most-starred ones next to it are Architecture Decision Records, AI-First Engineering and Agentic OS. DirSkills ranks by the star count of the repository each skill ships in, so that order reflects how popular those repositories are rather than any review of Cao Supervisor Protocols against them. Open each page to compare what they document and how they install.