Agent Teams: teammate messages render with '⏺ Human:' prefix, indistinguishable from user input

Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Feb 22, 2026 by michael-wojcik Closed Mar 22, 2026

Problem

When using Agent Teams, teammate messages delivered via SendMessage are rendered in the terminal with the same ⏺ Human: prefix as actual user input. There is no visual distinction between:

  • A message the user typed
  • A message a teammate agent sent via SendMessage(type="message", recipient="team-lead", ...)

This causes confusion — the user sees teammate reports appearing as if they were their own input.

Expected Behavior

Teammate messages should be visually distinct from user input. For example:

  • ⏺ Teammate (backend-coder): instead of ⏺ Human:
  • Or use the color field from SendMessage for visual differentiation
  • Or a different icon/prefix entirely

The SendMessage tool already provides summary and sender identity (from field in inbox JSON) — this metadata could be used for rendering.

Reproduction

  1. Create a team: TeamCreate(team_name="test")
  2. Spawn a teammate: Task(name="worker", team_name="test", subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt="Send a message to team-lead saying hello")
  3. Observe: the teammate's message appears as ⏺ Human: in the lead's terminal

Environment

  • Claude Code CLI (terminal mode)
  • macOS Darwin 25.4.0
  • Agent Teams enabled via CLAUDE_CODE_EXPERIMENTAL_AGENT_TEAMS

Impact

  • Users cannot distinguish their own input from teammate messages
  • Creates confusion about conversation flow
  • No setting, CLI flag, or hook exists to customize this label

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