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
colorfield 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
- Create a team:
TeamCreate(team_name="test") - Spawn a teammate:
Task(name="worker", team_name="test", subagent_type="general-purpose", prompt="Send a message to team-lead saying hello") - 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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