Orchestration

# Orca Orchestration

This file is a discovery stub, not the usage guide. The full, version-matched Orca orchestration reference is served by the `orca` binary itself — kept out of this file on purpose so it can never drift from the binary that will actually run your commands.

Engage Orca orchestration whenever you need structured multi-agent coordination: threaded messages, blocking ask/reply flows, task dispatch, worker_done/escalation waits, task DAGs, decision gates, coordinator loops, or decomposing work across agents. Use the orca-cli skill instead for full ownership handoffs ("hand off", "handoff", "handover", "give this to another agent", "another worktree") when the user did not ask to supervise, monitor, wait for results, or coordinate a DAG — and for ordinary terminal control, shell commands, worktree management, and the built-in browser. Coordination requires real Orca runtime state; never substitute a non-Orca subagent tool.

## Resolve the CLI for this session

Choose the executable once and reuse it for every later command:

- If the `ORCA_CLI_COMMAND` environment variable is set, use its value. Orca exports this for managed WSL sessions. - Otherwise, in a dev checkout whose session exposes `ORCA_DEV_REPO_ROOT`, use `orca-dev`. - Otherwise, on Linux outside an Orca-managed terminal, use `orca-ide`. Never run bare `orca` there — outside Orca's terminals it normally resolves to the GNOME Orca screen reader (`/usr/bin/orca`) and starts speech on the user's machine. - Otherwise, use `orca`.

Below, `ORCA` is a placeholder for the executable you resolved. Substitute it before running anything; do not create a shell variable or run `ORCA` literally. This works the same way in POSIX shells, PowerShell, and cmd.exe.

If the selected executable cannot run, report its exact error and stop. Do not fall through to another executable, which could silently target a different Orca build.

## Load the version-matched guide before running Orca commands

```text ORCA skills get orchestration ```

That prints the compact, version-matched guide for the exact binary that will handle your next commands. It covers the normal local coordinator loop. For a conditional action gate such as remote placement, uncertain release recovery, or expanded DAG work, load only the reference that gate names with `ORCA skills get orchestration --reference references/<file>.md` (`--references` lists the names). If that binary rejects `--reference`, run `ORCA skills get orchestration --full` and read the named bundled reference before acting.

Prefer `--json`. Use the selected executable's `--help` for commands or flags the guide does not cover. If a command reports that Orca is not running, start it with `ORCA open --json` and retry. If it fails with `runtime_access_denied`, your sandbox blocked the connection: re-run it with escalated permissions, and do not run `ORCA open` or restart Orca. If `skills get` is unknown, explain that updating Orca restores the guide; use `--help` for read-only discovery and do not guess unsupported commands.