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goose-cli

Skill14 starsChanged 10 days agoMITView on GitHub

Use Goose CLI as a subagent. Lets the main agent prompt Goose CLI from the terminal in headless mode with the `goose` command, and send the goal, the decisions and the scope with the task. Use when the user asks to delegate work to Goose CLI, when a task needs a second independent agent, or when a plan needs a fresh perspective.

  • Pipes a download into a shell
  • Installs packages

The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

12 rules. About 0 are common, 9 are distinctive, and 3 are very specific to this project.

  • ≈0

    Common · estimate

    Many files like this have a rule of this kind.

  • ≈9

    Distinctive · estimate

    This author's own choices. Worth a look.

  • 3

    Very specific

    Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

  • Common
  • Distinctive
  • Very specific
  1. Distinctive:

    Secrets or policy-sensitive work: Do not pipe credentials into a subagent.

    line 48
  2. Distinctive:

    Low return on investment: If writing the handoff costs more than doing the edit, do the edit.

    line 50
  3. Distinctive:

    Treat every call as stateless delegation: the subagent keeps nothing between calls, so each command must carry its own state.

    line 61
  4. Distinctive:

    Write the prompt as a transfer of shared state, not as a title.

    line 71
  5. Distinctive:

    Prefer sequential delegations with explicit carry-over.

    line 82
  6. Distinctive:

    After the subagent returns:

    line 96
  7. Distinctive:

    Every vendor has its own terminal rules.

    line 104
  8. Distinctive:

    Exit code 0 is not success: If stdout is empty, treat the run as failed and read stderr.

    line 108
  9. Very specific:

    Keep all seven sub-headings, in this order, even if the answer is "none".

    line 119
  10. Very specific:

    Do not pass -s/--interactive.

    line 151
  11. Distinctive:

    Always prefix the call:

    line 164
  12. Very specific:

    Run goose info to see the resolved configuration and paths, and goose configure to change them interactively.

    line 183

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.
Files
SKILL.md

Goose (subagent / task delegation)

<!-- ============================================================================= GLOBAL HALF — sections 1 to 5. These sections are identical in every skill in this repository. Copy them without any change. Do not put a vendor name or a flag in them. A change here must be made in all skills at the same time. ============================================================================= -->

What is it

This skill teaches your agent to use an agent from another vendor as a subagent.

Almost every coding agent has a headless mode. Headless mode runs the agent from the terminal with one command and returns the answer to stdout. This skill gives the command pattern for one such agent, and the protocol to transfer enough context with the task.

You stay the main agent. You keep the plan, the decisions and the conversation with the user. The subagent does one bounded task and reports back.

When to delegate

  • The user asks for it. The user names another agent, or asks for a second opinion.
  • Large or multi-step work. The task covers several files, phases or checkpoints.
  • Code review with a fresh mind. Another agent reviews the work with a different lens and no memory of the decisions that produced it.
  • Planning that needs different ideas. A second agent proposes options that you did not consider.
  • An internal council. Several subagents answer the same question, and you compare the answers.
  • Deep research. The other CLI has web search, web extraction or browser automation.
  • Background investigation. A long task runs in the background while you continue in the foreground.

When not to delegate

  • Small or single-step tasks. One or two edits, or a short explanation, are faster in this thread.
  • Tight feedback loops. The user wants quick back-and-forth in one conversation.
  • Secrets or policy-sensitive work. Do not pipe credentials into a subagent. Redact first.
  • Context you already hold. Repeating the whole plan in a prompt adds no value.
  • Low return on investment. If writing the handoff costs more than doing the edit, do the edit.
  • Work that needs high precision and full judgement. A subagent without your context will break a task that depends on a detail only this session knows.

Delegation and context transfer protocol

An isolated subagent saves tokens, but it splits the story. The subagent does not see this conversation. It has no memory of the goal you agreed with the user, the decisions you already made, or the paths you agreed not to touch. A poor handoff causes misread tasks, wrong assumptions about the stack or the style, and wasted edits.

Treat every call as stateless delegation: the subagent keeps nothing between calls, so each command must carry its own state. A good handoff happens when you keep these practices in mind:

  • Shared state handoff. The prompt carries the original goal, the decisions already made, and the explicit scope, to bridge the subagent's missing session history.
  • Contextual preservation. The high-volume work stays in the isolated process, so the bulk never enters this conversation and no "split story" forms from missing history.
  • Result reconciliation. What comes back is folded into this thread afterwards, so there is a single source of truth.

Write the prompt as a transfer of shared state, not as a title. Include all six fields:

IncludeWhy
GoalThe same objective as the user, not only the immediate micro-task.
DecisionsFramework, patterns, naming, "use X not Y" — anything that would otherwise be guessed wrong.
ScopeThe absolute paths and modules to touch, and the areas to leave alone. A relative path may not resolve where you expect.
ConstraintsPerformance, accessibility, compatibility, review gates, "no new dependencies".
VerificationThe exact command the subagent must run and pass before it returns.
OutputFor example: "report only, no edits", "apply edits with a minimal diff", "list the files changed".

Prefer sequential delegations with explicit carry-over. Parallel runs diverge unless every run gets the same briefing.

Run the subagent in the mode that does the work without asking for approval. Headless mode has nobody to answer a permission prompt. Any mode that stops to ask will stall, or return an empty answer with a success exit code. Each CLI names this mode differently — take the flag from the vendor card below.

Never call a subagent in plan mode. Many CLIs have a plan or read-only mode. That mode makes the other agent write a plan for itself, which is not what you asked for: you want its work or its answer, and you keep the planning. Plan mode also waits for someone to approve that plan, so the run comes back with nothing. If you want no file changes, keep the auto-approving mode and write "report only, no edits" in the Output field. Do not use plan mode to make a run read-only.

After the subagent returns:

  • Report to the user. Give a short summary. Do not paste long logs unless the user asks.
  • Reconcile the context. Record the decisions it made, the files it changed, and the open risks, so this session stays the single source of truth.

CLI failure modes

Every vendor has its own terminal rules. A headless run fails quietly more often than it fails loudly.

  • Wrap the call in an external timeout. A headless CLI can stall before its own timeout starts.
  • Exit code 0 is not success. If stdout is empty, treat the run as failed and read stderr. A permission the CLI could not ask for, and a prompt that never arrived, both look like success.
  • Never carry a flag habit from one CLI to another. The same short flag means different things in different tools. In OpenCode, -p is --password: passing a prompt to it empties the message and the run waits on stdin forever. Confirm every flag against the CLI's own --help.
  • An unrecognized-flag error means this skill is stale, not that the task is impossible. Read --help, continue with the flags that exist, and tell the user which line in this file is wrong.
<!-- ============================================================================= VENDOR HALF — section 6. Everything below is specific to this CLI. Keep all seven sub-headings, in this order, even if the answer is "none". Take every flag from the installed binary (`<cli> --help`), not from memory and not from another skill in this repository. ============================================================================= -->

Vendor card

Binary and prompt form

  • Binary: goose
  • Install: curl -fsSL https://github.com/aaif-goose/goose/releases/download/stable/download_cli.sh | bash (macOS, Linux). Homebrew: brew install block-goose-cli. Windows steps are on the vendor install page.
  • Prompt form: flag, after the run subcommand. goose run is described as "Execute commands from an instruction file or stdin" and takes the task either way:
    • -t, --text <TEXT> — the prompt inline
    • -i, --instructions <FILE> — read the prompt from a file; use - for stdin There is no positional prompt. goose session is the interactive surface; use goose run instead.
  • The verified trap: -n is --name, the session name — not "non-interactive". Several other CLIs use -n for a one-shot run. Here goose run is already one-shot, and -n only labels the session. Do not reach for -n expecting headless behaviour.

Headless and output flags

NeedFlag
Run once and exitrun -t "prompt" or run -i <file>
Answer only on stdout-q, --quiet — "Suppress non-response output"
Plain text / JSON / events--output-format text|json|stream-json (default text)
Do not write a session file--no-session — documented as "Useful for automated runs"
Cap the run--max-turns <n> — default 1000
Stop repeat-call loops--max-tool-repetitions <n> — "Helps prevent infinite loops"
Extra system instructions--system <TEXT>
Print token and cost stats--stats

Do not pass -s/--interactive; it keeps the session open after the task instead of exiting.

Approvals and permissions

Approvals are set by the GOOSE_MODE environment variable, not by a flag on goose run. There is no --mode, --yolo, --auto-approve or --permission-mode on this binary. The documented values are auto, approve, smart_approve (underscore, not hyphen) and chat, and the documented default is auto.

GOOSE_MODE does not appear in --help; it comes from the vendor's configuration and headless documentation. Environment beats the saved config.yaml, so set it inline and do not rely on the default — a user may have approve or smart_approve persisted.

Always prefix the call:

GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -t "[prompt]" --no-session

approve and smart_approve stop on a prompt nobody can answer; chat disables tool calls altogether. Never edit ~/.config/goose/config.yaml on the user's behalf — pass the variable for your own call instead. GOOSE_DISABLE_SESSION_NAMING=true additionally skips a background model call used only to name the session.

Models and how to list them

Provider and model come from the GOOSE_PROVIDER and GOOSE_MODEL environment variables, and both can be overridden for a single run:

  • --provider <PROVIDER> — overrides GOOSE_PROVIDER
  • --model <MODEL> — overrides GOOSE_MODEL; the model must be supported by that provider

Run goose info to see the resolved configuration and paths, and goose configure to change them interactively. goose local-models (alias lm) manages local inference models. If the user names a model, use it. For capability and price comparisons, check Artificial Analysis.

Command pattern

GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -t "GOAL: [goal] | DECISIONS: [decisions] | SCOPE: [absolute paths] | CONSTRAINTS: [constraints] | VERIFICATION: [test_command] | OUTPUT: [format]" \
  --no-session --quiet --max-turns 60 --output-format text 2>&1

For a handoff too long for one command line, write it to a file and read it back:

GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -i ./task.md --no-session --quiet --max-turns 60

Prompt examples

  • Implement: GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -t "GOAL: [goal] | DECISIONS: [decisions] | SCOPE: [absolute paths] | VERIFICATION: [test_command] | OUTPUT: files changed" --no-session --max-turns 80
  • Review: GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -t "GOAL: Review [scope] for [concerns] | CONSTRAINTS: do not edit any file | OUTPUT: findings with severity" --no-session --quiet
  • Investigate: GOOSE_MODE=auto goose run -t "GOAL: Map how [feature] works | SCOPE: [absolute paths] | CONSTRAINTS: do not edit any file | OUTPUT: file:line map" --no-session --quiet --output-format json

Docs and reference

  • Flags, models, modes, skills and paths: reference.md
  • Vendor documentation: https://goose-docs.ai/docs/
  • Checked on 2026-11-05. Flags were last run against goose 1.51.0 (--help, run --help, skills --help, skills list, info). Latest release is v1.57.0; goose is not installed here, so the flags were not re-run on it. Install commands come from the vendor docs. GOOSE_MODE and its default are from the vendor's configuration and headless docs — the variable is not in --help. A model turn was not completed, because that needs provider credentials. The vendor moved: docs are at goose-docs.ai and the repository org is aaif-goose.

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