Stigmergy

Stigmergy is a managed agent fleet platform. You describe what you want built. A Queen agent decomposes the work, spawns Workers, and coordinates them to build it autonomously.

How it works

You  →  Describe your project  →  stigmergy.yaml
                                        ↓
                                  Hivemind (platform)
                                        ↓
                                  Hive (Queen + Workers)
                                        ↓
                                  Code gets written

1. Describe: Tell Stigmergy what you want — “Build a SaaS with auth, billing, and a React dashboard”
2. Review: Stigmergy generates a stigmergy.yaml — the deployment spec for your agent fleet
3. Deploy: Hit deploy. The platform spawns a Queen, which spawns Workers, which start building
4. Watch: Monitor progress via dashboard. Every agent action is auditable via Nectar

The hierarchy

Hive (your project)

The top-level container. Contains the Queen, her orders, and all the nests (work streams). One hive per project.

Queen (the coordinator)

An Opus-tier Claude Code instance with a management prompt. The Queen:

• Reads orders.yaml — the project spec
• Decomposes work into parallel tracks (frontend, backend, infra)
• Writes brood.yaml configs for each work stream
• Spawns Worker nests
• Monitors progress via telemetry
• Intervenes when something goes wrong

The Queen doesn’t write code. It thinks, delegates, and course-corrects — the same workflow a human tech lead uses.

Nest (a work stream)

One incubator instance with agents, protocol, and coordination. Each nest handles one track of work (e.g., “frontend” or “backend”). Multiple nests run in parallel within a hive.

Workers (the builders)

Claude Code instances in containers with full dev tools. Workers claim tasks, write code, run tests, and publish completion events. They don’t know they’re in a fleet — they think they’re developers on a team.

The foundational insight

Stigmergy automates the exact workflow that built the company. One person (Jocelyn) + Claude Code, coordinating across sessions, monitoring output, intervening when stuck, killing sessions that go nowhere.

Human does this today	Queen does this in Stigmergy
Opens Claude Code, gives it a task	Spawns a Worker with a system prompt
Reads terminal output, decides next step	Reads telemetry, adjusts via ACP
”Stop, the tests are failing”	Broadcasts halt via ACP events
Runs 3 sessions for frontend/backend/infra	Hive with 3 Nests
Kills a stuck session, starts fresh	Kills Worker, spawns replacement
Writes CLAUDE.md instructions	Writes system prompts for Workers

The Queen IS the human with a system prompt. Same tools, same decisions, same patterns.

Model tier matching

Queen (Opus)      → Strategic decisions, task decomposition
Workers (Sonnet)  → Complex implementation, architecture
Workers (Haiku)   → Repetitive tasks — CSS, tests, migrations
Drones (Haiku)    → Review, voting, coordination

The Queen auto-scales model tiers based on task complexity. Simple CSS task → spawn a Haiku worker. Complex API design → Sonnet. The cheapest agent that can do the job.

Recursive composition

Queens can spawn sub-Queens for complex projects:

orders.yaml

nests:
  frontend:
    brood: frontend-brood.yaml
    topics: [api.ready, deploy.trigger]
  backend:
    brood: backend-brood.yaml
    topics: [api.ready, db.migrated]
  infrastructure:
    hive:  # Sub-hive with its own Queen
      orders: infra-orders.yaml
      topics: [deploy.trigger, health.*]

The infrastructure track gets its own Queen, which spawns its own Workers. All connected via ACP topic channels. Recursion depth is configurable.

Cost efficiency

Workers spin up and down instantly. The meter runs only when agents are thinking:

• Worker finishes task → publishes completion → container dies → zero cost
• Queen needs more hands → HTTP call → new Worker in seconds
• 3 AM, nothing happening → everything down → zero idle burn
• User pushes code → webhook → Queen wakes → scales as needed

Traditional: ~$0.05/hr per agent (80% idle). Stigmergy: pay only when bees are buzzing.