Chaining & overrides

Chaining with #auto:

#auto: queues agents to run after the current one finishes, separated by +:

/architect #auto:engineer+execute

Recipes

Goal	Comment
Full pipeline, everything automatic	/execute (the cascade builds the chain for you)
Full pipeline, explicit	/architect #auto:engineer+execute
Design + plan, stop before code	/architect #auto:engineer
Re-plan and re-execute after feedback	/engineer #auto:execute
Design only	/architect

Semantics

• Order matters — verbs run left to right after the current agent.
• Aliases normalize: #auto:tactics+run ≡ #auto:engineer+execute (custom aliases too).
• Dedup + cap: a verb appears at most once per chain; chains cap at 5 verbs.
• Loop protection: a Definition-of-Ready delegation refuses to dispatch an agent that’s already in the chain, failing loudly instead of looping.
• Blocking stops the chain: Questions Mode or any failure halts the remaining chain — resolve and re-run.
• The cascade composes with your chain: if the Engineer isn’t ready, your pending chain is re-queued behind the Architect, not lost. An execute-routed run keeps your execution intent the same way.

Overrides

/<verb> model:<m> effort:<e> turns:<n>

Override	Values	Also accepted
model:	opus, sonnet, haiku, any claude-* id	bare positional (/execute opus)
effort:	off, low, medium, high, max	bare positional (/execute max)
turns:	1–1000	turns=, max-turns=, max_turns=

effort: maps to the provider’s native reasoning-effort control (for Claude, the CLI’s --effort flag via claude_args) rather than a prompt instruction — see the effort: reference for the off/max caveats.

How far an override reaches

Path	Behavior
The triggered run	Always applies
Chained agents (#auto: / cascade)	Applies only if you set it explicitly — otherwise each agent uses its own defaults.json
Wave workers	The Maestro forwards your explicit overrides to every dispatched Developer

This is deliberate: /architect model:opus #auto:engineer+execute runs the whole pipeline on opus, while /architect #auto:engineer+execute lets the Architect use its default (opus) and the Developers theirs (sonnet).

Resolution order

For each parameter, the first defined value wins:

1. Inline directive in your comment
2. .autoducks/agents/<agent>/defaults.json
3. defaults in .autoducks/autoducks.json
4. Provider default (max_turns only: 50)

Tip

Cost tuning example — cheap workers, smart planner:

.autoducks/agents/engineer/defaults.json

{ "model": "claude-opus-4-8", "effort": "high" }

// .autoducks/agents/developer/defaults.json
{ "model": "claude-sonnet-5", "effort": "high" }

Then /execute plans with opus and builds with sonnet, no directive needed.