Agent Catalog

Applies to: Dispatch v1.0.0, last updated 2026-04-05

TL;DR: Dispatch ships with 20 ready-to-use agent persona files, synced automatically to ~/.claude/agents/ via the app.

Dispatch ships with 20 pre-written agent persona files in the agents/ directory of the repository. Each file is a Markdown document with YAML frontmatter that Claude Code reads to give an agent its role, available tools, and system prompt.

Bundled agents

Name	Model	Role
ceo	opus	Business strategy: product direction, ROI, market positioning, resource allocation
cto	opus	Strategic technical leadership: org-level architecture decisions, team implications, build vs buy
system-architect	opus	Technical design of a specific system: service boundaries, data flow, domain modeling, failure modes
data-engineer	opus	Database design, schema migrations, query optimization, pipeline architecture
compliance-counsel	opus	Open-source licensing, data privacy (GDPR/CCPA/HIPAA), compliance frameworks (SOC2/ISO27001)
staff-engineer	sonnet	General engineering: code review, implementation approach, refactoring strategy
devops	sonnet	CI/CD, infrastructure as code, reliability, observability, incident response
product-engineer	sonnet	Analytics, instrumentation, A/B testing, feature flags, funnel optimization
creative-technologist	sonnet	UI/UX architecture, design systems, component design, accessibility, animations
security-engineer	sonnet	Threat modeling, vulnerability assessment, auth/authz review, attack surface analysis
qa-architect	sonnet	Test strategy and infrastructure design: what to test, at what layer, and why
qa-engineer	sonnet	Writes tests (unit, integration, and end-to-end) following the strategy set by qa-architect
tech-writer	sonnet	Technical documentation: API docs, ADRs, READMEs, runbooks, migration guides

Choosing between similar roles

• Use cto for org-level technology decisions. Use system-architect when designing the internals of a specific service.
• Use security-engineer for attack surface analysis and code-level vulnerabilities. Use compliance-counsel for regulatory exposure and licensing.
• Use qa-architect to design a test strategy. Use qa-engineer to write the actual tests that implement it.
• Use product-engineer for user instrumentation and experiments. Use devops for infrastructure monitoring and deployment.

Installing bundled agents

During onboarding

The first-run setup wizard presents all bundled agents with checkboxes. All are selected by default. Deselect any you do not want, then click Install Selected.

From Settings

1. Open Settings (gear icon in the header).
2. Select the Agents tab.
3. Under Available to Install, click Install next to any agent.

Agent file format

Agent files are plain Markdown. YAML frontmatter at the top declares the agent’s identity and capabilities. The body is the system prompt.

Frontmatter fields

Field	Type	Required	Description
name	string	Required	The agent’s identifier. Used as the persona: value in plan.md. Must match ^[a-z0-9-]+$.
description	string	Optional	Human-readable summary. Claude Code surfaces this when deciding which subagent to invoke.
model	string	Optional	Model alias: sonnet, opus. Omit to use Claude Code’s default.
tools	string	Optional	Comma-separated tool names. See Valid tool names.
color	string	Optional	CSS hex color (e.g. #e49e07) for the agent’s liveness dot tint in the sidebar.
emoji	string	Optional	A single emoji character used as the agent’s avatar in the Agent Team graph and the “Hire” wizard. Dispatch-specific. Claude Code ignores this field.
enabled	boolean	Optional	Set to false to archive the agent. Defaults to true.

Valid tool names

The tools field accepts comma-separated values from this set of 14 canonical names:

Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep,
WebFetch, WebSearch, TodoRead, TodoWrite,
NotebookRead, NotebookEdit, Agent, mcp

The server rejects any agent save or update containing names outside this set.

Example

---
name: data-engineer
description: Database design, schema migrations, query optimization, data modeling, and pipeline architecture.
model: opus
tools: Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Edit, Write, WebSearch, WebFetch
color: "#00f5d4"
emoji: 🗄️
---

You are a senior Data Engineer with 15+ years of experience.

Before recommending anything, you ask:
1. What is the read/write ratio at 10x current scale?
2. What are the consistency requirements?
3. What existing infrastructure are we constrained to?

Custom agents

You can write your own agent files and import them into the catalog. See Custom Agents for step-by-step instructions.