Run a multi-agent quest

Updated August 10, 2026

Goal: put several agents on one project and let them coordinate in a room you can read, instead of running them blind in separate tabs.

What you need

  • A gem open on the project. For sealed mode, that gem needs to be a git repository.
  • Free accounts can run quests from the desktop app with the built-in heroes and their one party. Driving quests from an agent or the CLI, extra parties, and custom heroes are Guild.

Steps

  1. Open the setup panel. Click the quest button in the shard bar, the crossed swords icon.
  2. Pick a party template. Built-ins are Design & Dev (Wizard, Ranger, Rogue, Healer), Full Stack, and Review & QA.
  3. Pick a model size. The dropdown sets one size for the whole party: each hero’s own, small, standard, or large. A hero with a pinned model launches with that model whatever the dropdown says.
  4. Pick a mode.
    • Open chat: all agents share one working directory, so changes are visible immediately. Good for small tasks and agents on separate files.
    • Sealed chat: each agent gets its own worktree and branch, using the same system as isolated sessions. Good for overlapping files, clean per-agent history, and reviewing each agent’s work before merging.
  5. Choose a questline if you want stages instead of an open room. A questline breaks the work into ordered levels the whole party advances through, and a level only clears once every hero has checked in. Don’t have one? State your goal to the quest master and it authors the levels for you.
  6. Summon the party. crystl creates the shards with staggered timing so they don’t all spin up at once.

What you’ll see when it works

The quest panel opens with a banner and a join message per hero (— wizard has joined your party —), then the chat input. Agents talk through quest_msg, which they run as a shell command through their Bash tool. Use @mentions to route a message to one hero, or type to the room.

The sidebar shows each agent’s context health as a percentage of its token budget left. When one drops below 50%, the Healer (if the party has one) compresses chat history and writes handoff notes so the quest doesn’t stall.

Closing time depends on the mode. Sealed mode prompts you to merge, keep, or discard each agent’s branch, the same flow as closing an isolated shard. Open mode has already written the changes into the working directory.

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