Team Coordination

Each Copilot session operates independently, with no visibility into what other sessions are deciding. Git resolves code conflicts, and the board resolves task conflicts. But divergent design decisions in parallel are the real risk: two developers can make conflicting architectural decisions without knowing.

The framework addresses this through three layers of increasing cost.

The board is the source of truth for task status and ownership. Design decisions, specifications, and architecture choices are authoritative as disk artifacts (specs, ADRs, plan files).

Layer 1: ADRs as Synchronization Points

ADRs function as the team’s “semantic lock”:

ADRs are created with Status: Proposed by default
An ADR should not move to Accepted without review by at least one other team member
The devsquad.plan agent warns when a developer tries to accept an ADR directly, suggesting creating it as Proposed first

Layer 2: Duplicate Domain Detection

When creating a new ADR, the adr-workflow skill scans existing ADRs for overlapping domains. If a related decision exists, the agent surfaces it:

An ADR already exists for this domain:

  0003-context-management.md (Accepted)

Options:
[U] Update the existing ADR with new context
[S] Create a new ADR that supersedes 0003
[P] Proceed with a new, independent ADR (different scope)

This prevents two developers from independently making conflicting decisions about the same domain.

Layer 3: Reactive Inconsistency Detection

@devsquad.refine serves as the safety net, detecting inconsistencies that slipped through:

Category	What It Detects
Spec-Board Mismatch	Specs updated after tasks were created
ADR-Implementation Gap	Decisions made but not reflected in code
Missing Tasks	User stories without task coverage
Orphan Tasks	Tasks without parent user story
Stale PRs	Open, unreviewed, or failing CI
Unfinished Dependencies	Blocking tasks still open

Run @devsquad.refine periodically (e.g., before sprint planning) to surface inconsistencies.

Persistent Artifacts as Source of Truth

All decisions live in versioned files, not in session memory. The framework relies on disk artifacts as the canonical source of design decisions. See Context Management for the full artifact authority model.

When a new team member joins, these artifacts provide full context without requiring knowledge transfer sessions.

Change Propagation Limitations

The framework does not automatically propagate changes to dependent artifacts:

Scenario	Current Behavior	Mitigation
Spec updated	Existing tasks are not notified	Run `@devsquad.refine` to detect mismatch
ADR superseded	Tasks depending on old decision continue	Refine flags ADR-implementation gaps
Feature canceled	Work items become orphaned	Manual board cleanup
Re-prioritization	Requires manual board update	Use `@devsquad.sprint` to reassess

Implementation Guardrails

Individual developer guardrails during implementation. See Implementation Guardrails.

Reasoning and Handoff

How decisions are recorded and passed between phases. See Reasoning and Handoff.