Combining Knowledge from Multiple Squads

Try this to coordinate cross-team work:

I have two teams — one on frontend, one on backend. How do I coordinate work between them?

Try this to share skills across projects:

Export skills from my React project and import them into this new project

You can import one full squad at a time, but you can cherry-pick skills from multiple exports manually. Best practice: merge teams, don’t run parallel squads.

1. The Reality: One Full Squad at a Time

You have 3 repos with trained squads. You’re starting a new project and want the best of all of them.

Squad’s import system brings in a complete team — roster, charters, histories, skills, decisions. You can only import one full squad cleanly.

But you can cherry-pick skills and knowledge manually.

2. Export from Each Repository

In each repo with a trained squad:

cd ~/projects/saas-app
npx github:bradygaster/squad export

📦 Exporting squad to squad-export-2025-07-15.zip
✅ Export complete: squad-export-2025-07-15.zip

Contains:
  - Roster (5 agents)
  - Charters (4 agent charters)
  - Skills (23 skills)
  - Decisions
  - Histories (project-specific context removed)

Repeat for your other repos:

cd ~/projects/mobile-app
npx github:bradygaster/squad export
# Produces: squad-export-2025-07-15-1.zip

cd ~/projects/api-gateway
npx github:bradygaster/squad export
# Produces: squad-export-2025-07-15-2.zip

You now have three export archives.

3. Import the Most Relevant Squad

Pick the squad whose domain knowledge is closest to your new project.

cd ~/projects/new-platform
git init
npx github:bradygaster/squad

> Import a squad from squad-export-saas-app.zip

✅ Squad imported
   5 agents, 23 skills, 47 decisions, histories loaded

Your team is ready.

This squad is now your baseline.

4. Cherry-Pick Skills from Other Squads

You can’t import a second full squad without conflicts, but you can manually copy individual skill files.

Extract the other two exports and copy skill files:

# Extract the mobile-app squad export
unzip squad-export-mobile-app.zip -d /tmp/mobile-squad

# Copy specific skills you want
cp /tmp/mobile-squad/.ai-team/skills/react-native-debugging.md .ai-team/skills/
cp /tmp/mobile-squad/.ai-team/skills/mobile-testing-patterns.md .ai-team/skills/

Repeat for the API gateway squad:

unzip squad-export-api-gateway.zip -d /tmp/gateway-squad

cp /tmp/gateway-squad/.ai-team/skills/rate-limiting-patterns.md .ai-team/skills/
cp /tmp/gateway-squad/.ai-team/skills/auth-middleware-testing.md .ai-team/skills/

Skills are standalone markdown files. Agents load them automatically.

5. Manually Merge History Insights (Optional)

If another squad learned something critical that isn’t in a skill file, you can manually append it to an agent’s history.

Open .ai-team/agents/{agent-name}/history.md and add the knowledge as a session entry:

## Session: 2025-07-15

### Context from previous squad (API Gateway project)
- GraphQL resolvers should always validate auth before query execution
- Rate limiting uses token bucket algorithm with Redis backing store
- Circuit breaker pattern wraps all downstream API calls

This becomes part of the agent’s memory.

6. Tell Agents About Cross-Project Knowledge

When you give your first task, reference the knowledge you brought in:

> Team, we've combined learnings from three previous projects:
> the SaaS app, the mobile app, and the API gateway.
> You have skills from all three. The SaaS patterns are your baseline,
> but we've also imported mobile testing strategies and gateway
> rate-limiting patterns. Use them.

📋 Scribe — logged cross-project context

Agents now know they have hybrid knowledge.

7. Alternative: Use --force for Full Reimport (Destructive)

If you want to replace your imported squad with a different one:

npx github:bradygaster/squad import squad-export-mobile-app.zip --force

This overwrites the existing squad. Use only if you’re sure.

Tips

  • One full import, then cherry-pick. Import the squad with the closest domain match, then manually copy skills from the others.
  • Skills are modular. Each skill file is independent. Copy the ones you need, ignore the rest.
  • Histories are context-heavy. Don’t import histories from unrelated projects — they contain project-specific details that will confuse agents.
  • Decisions can be manually merged. If another squad made architectural decisions you want to preserve, copy them into .ai-team/decisions.md as new entries.
  • Skill files are the cleanest transfer. They’re generic, portable, and immediately useful across projects.