Two days, built for engineers.

No Framework, No Server: Making AI Agents Collaborate in One Terminal

Lech Kalinowski

AI coding agents are powerful, but they usually work in isolation. One agent analyzes the code, another writes tests, and a third reviews the result—while the developer manually copies context between them. I built Agents Commander to explore a simpler alternative. Inspired by the classic Norton Commander interface, it places multiple agentic CLIs—such as Claude, Codex, and Gemini—side by side in a single terminal. More importantly, it allows those agents to communicate directly. At the center of the project is the Commander Protocol: a minimal, text-based communication format implemented through output observation and input injection. An agent can analyze a problem, delegate a task to another agent, receive the result, and continue working without a central orchestration server, complex API integration, or heavyweight multi-agent framework. Through live demonstrations, I will show agents delegating engineering work, exchanging findings, challenging one another, and refining their conclusions. I will also examine what happens when communication becomes part of the system being tested: messages are misunderstood, context is lost, agents disagree, and unexpected collaboration patterns emerge. Attendees will leave with a practical understanding of multi-agent communication, lightweight orchestration, and how visible agent-to-agent workflows can make AI-assisted engineering easier to inspect, debug, and control.