clideck ask lets one agent session send a question to another active session and wait for the answer. The response prints to stdout so the caller can use it immediately.
This is designed for agent-to-agent communication — one LLM agent asks another for help without you in the loop.
Discovery
Before asking, discover who’s available:
This lists active sessions in the same project as the caller. Output looks like:
Programmer (self, claude-code, idle) id=abc123
Reviewer (peer, claude-code, idle) id=def456
--json for machine-readable output.
Same-Project Ask
When the caller and target are in the same project, use the session name directly:
clideck ask --session "Reviewer" --message "Review my changes and return only findings."
clideck ask Reviewer "Review my changes and return only findings."
Cross-Project Ask
To reach a session in a different project, use the @project/session format:
clideck ask "@website/Docs Writer" "Check if the docs mention the new CLI flags." --timeout 15m
Quoting Targets with Spaces
If the session name or project name contains spaces, quote the entire target:
clideck ask "research manager" "Check this plan."
clideck ask "@My Project/Docs Writer" "Update the changelog."
--session, the quotes go around the value:
clideck ask --session "research manager" --message "Check this plan."
cat notes.md | clideck ask --session "Docs Writer" --timeout 10m
--message flag is not needed.
Busy Target Behavior
clideck ask only sends to idle sessions. If the target is currently working, the request fails immediately with:
Target session "Reviewer" is busy. CliDeck ask only sends to idle sessions.
Try again later, choose another idle session, or ask the user how to proceed.
Timeout
The target is another LLM agent. It may need minutes to read files, think, use tools, and compose an answer.
clideck ask --session "Programmer" --message "Refactor the auth module" --timeout 15m
| Flag | Default | Max |
|---|
--timeout / -t | 10 minutes | 1 hour |
30s, 10m, 1h.
Set both timeouts. clideck ask --timeout controls how long the ask command waits. But if your caller agent’s shell or tool-call timeout is shorter, the shell kills the process first — the target agent may keep working but the caller loses the response. Make sure both timeouts are high enough.
clideck ask prints progress updates to stderr every 15 seconds showing the target’s status and elapsed time. Use --no-progress to suppress these.
How It Works
- The caller agent runs
clideck ask from its terminal
- CliDeck resolves the target session (same-project or cross-project)
- If the target is busy, the request fails immediately
- CliDeck injects the message into the target’s terminal as a bracketed paste, prefixed with
[CliDeck ask from <caller>]
- CliDeck waits for the target agent to go from working back to idle
- The target’s response is captured from the transcript and printed to the caller’s stdout
Full CLI Reference
clideck ask --session <name-or-id> --message <text> [--timeout 10m]
clideck ask <name-or-id> <message> [--timeout 10m]
clideck ask "@project/session" <message> [--timeout 10m]
cat file.txt | clideck ask --session <name-or-id> [--timeout 10m]
| Option | Description |
|---|
-s, --session | Target session name or ID |
-m, --message | Message to send (or use stdin) |
-t, --timeout | Wait time (e.g. 30s, 10m, 1h). Default: 10m |
--url | CliDeck server URL. Default: CLIDECK_URL or http://127.0.0.1:<port> |
--no-progress | Suppress progress updates on stderr |
clideck ask requires CLIDECK_SESSION_ID to be set, which CliDeck sets automatically for sessions launched from the UI. It cannot be used from a terminal outside CliDeck.
