agent-name-is-identity

Sub-agent Spawn Name Is Identity, Not Task

When spawning a sub-agent (Agent / TeamCreate), the name: / subagent_type field is the agent’s IDENTITY — the canonical agent type, NOT a description of the task.

Rule

name: / subagent_type = identity. Set it to the canonical agent type (e.g. t1k-kit-developer, Explore, t1k-tester) or omit it (the harness defaults the label to subagent_type).
description: = task. The job summary belongs here — a 1–5 word imperative phrase. That is the ONLY place the task goes.
NEVER bake the task into the identity string. subB-mcp-skill-cleanup, G-syncback, issue-opus-preserve fuse identity + task into one session-local token — all violations.

Uniqueness suffix — the only permitted decoration

For parallel fan-out of the same agent type, a short numeric/uniqueness suffix disambiguates concurrent spawns:

Allowed (disambiguation only)	Forbidden (task baked into identity)
`t1k-code-reviewer-1`, `t1k-code-reviewer-2`	`reviewer-security-pass`, `reviewer-perf-pass`
`Explore-1`, `Explore-2`	`subC-lib-audit`, `G-zombie-sweep`
`t1k-tester-a`, `t1k-tester-b`	`subD-sync-back-skill`

The suffix is a counter (-1, -a), never a task phrase. A verb/noun after the agent type → move it to description:.

Full details

The 5 reasons it matters (identity erasure, no precedent, redundancy, t1k- identity marker, agentId routing), the status-row test, and the originating history (#383, DOTS-AI 2026-05-28, three maintainer push-backs): docs/agent-name-is-identity.md.

rules/naming-convention.md — t1k- prefix is the kit-shipped agent identity marker.
rules/orchestration-rules.md — which agent to spawn (this rule covers what to name it).
rules/mr-transparent-routing.md — the interceptor resolves the agent .md by subagent_type; a renamed spawn breaks resolution.