/register — Register a New Cortex Agent

Create an agent note for a new team member. Run this as the chief of staff or from any session with access to the team directory.

Arguments

<agent-name> — the agent's display name (e.g., "Billing Dev", "Dashboard Dev"). If not provided, ask: "What is the new agent's name?"

Steps

1. Read config

Read ~/.cortex/config.yaml to get team_dir.

If config doesn't exist, stop and respond:

"Cortex is not set up yet. Run /setup first."

2. Resolve name and slug

Use the provided <agent-name>.

Derive the slug: lowercase, replace spaces with hyphens, strip any characters that are not alphanumeric or hyphens (e.g., "Billing Dev" -> "billing-dev").

3. Check for existing agent

Check if <team_dir>/agents/<slug>/<slug>.md already exists.

If it does, stop and respond:

"Agent <name> is already registered at agents/<slug>/<slug>.md."

4. Gather agent details

Ask: "What is the project directory for this agent? (absolute path, e.g., ~/Projects/billing-service)"

Ask: "What is this agent's role? (one line, e.g., 'Build and maintain the billing service')"

Ask: "What are this agent's capabilities? (comma-separated, e.g., 'Python, FastAPI, database migrations')"

5. Read template

Read <team_dir>/templates/agent-template.md.

If it doesn't exist, use this default template structure:

---
name: ""
project: ""
status: active
joined: ""
---

## Role


## Projects


## Capabilities


## Session Log
Last session: --
Status: registered

6. Create agent files

Create subfolder: mkdir -p <team_dir>/agents/<slug>

Write <team_dir>/agents/<slug>/<slug>.md with the template filled in:

• name: the display name
• project: the project directory path
• status: active
• joined: today's date (YYYY-MM-DD)
• ## Role: the role description
• ## Projects: the project slug derived from the project path basename
• ## Capabilities: the capabilities list (as bullet points, one per line)
• ## Session Log: initialized with "Last session: --" and "Status: registered"

Write <team_dir>/agents/<slug>/tasks.md as an empty file.

7. Confirm

Respond:

"Registered <name> in Cortex.

Agent note: <team_dir>/agents/<slug>/<slug>.md Task file: <team_dir>/agents/<slug>/tasks.md

Next step: In the agent's project directory (<project_path>), run:

/join <name>
```"