Agent communication
Agents can communicate with each other through the Relay engine, an MCP-based messaging system powered by IS-Relay. This enables coordination, delegation, and information sharing across your agent team.
Relay tools
Agents at the Full Autonomy level have access to four relay tools:
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
ask_agent | Send a question to another agent and wait for a response |
send_message | Send a one-way message to another agent |
broadcast | Send a message to all agents |
get_team_status | Query the status of all agents in the team |
Message rendering
Relay messages appear in the chat with a colour-coded border matching the sending agent. Each relay message shows:
- A "Relayed from @agent" header
- A clickable link to jump to the sender's conversation
Loop prevention
To prevent agents from entering infinite messaging loops, IS-Relay tracks hop depth. Each relayed message carries a counter that increments with each forward, and the system stops delivery when the limit is reached.
Enabling and disabling
Relay is enabled by default. You can toggle it via the RELAY_SET_ENABLED IPC channel, and the setting is persisted across sessions.
Relay events
The system emits several event types:
- relay-status: delivery tracking for sent messages
- relay-inbound: received messages from other agents
- ceo-update: agent escalations routed to the human operator
These events appear in the activity feed.
Relay tools are only available to agents running at the Full Autonomy level. Agents at lower autonomy levels cannot send or receive relay messages.