Nelson
Squadron-scale agent coordination for Claude Code — with risk tiers, damage control, and decision logs.
A Claude Code skill that organises multi-agent work into structured naval operations: sailing orders define the mission, captains command parallel workstreams, action stations enforce risk-appropriate controls, and a captain's log captures every decision for audit.
4 risk tiers · 10 damage control procedures · 10 mission templates · 7 crew roles · 15 standing orders
Contents
- Quick Start
- What it does
- Why Nelson?
- How it works
- Prerequisites
- Installation
- Usage
- Customisation
- Plugin file structure
- Mission artifacts
- Compatibility notes
- Star History
- Disclaimer
- License
Quick Start
/plugin marketplace add harrymunro/nelson
/plugin install nelson@nelson-marketplace
Then just describe your mission:
Use Nelson to migrate the payment module from Stripe v2 to v3
Nelson is a Claude Code skill — it loads automatically when your request matches. No slash command needed. See Prerequisites for the full agent-team experience with split panes.
What it does
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/2468679d-39f5-4efb-9d93-43d43eee8907
Nelson gives Claude a six-step operational framework for tackling complex missions:
- Sailing Orders — Define the outcome, success metric, constraints, and stop criteria
- Form the Squadron — Choose an execution mode (single-session, subagents, or agent team) and size the team
- Battle Plan — Split the mission into independent tasks with owners, dependencies, and file ownership
- Quarterdeck Rhythm — Run checkpoints to track progress, identify blockers, monitor hull integrity, and manage budget
- Action Stations — Classify tasks by risk tier and enforce verification before marking complete
- Stand Down — Produce a captain's log with decisions, artifacts, validation evidence, and follow-ups
Why Nelson?
Most agent orchestration tools focus on starting missions. Nelson focuses on completing them safely.
Nelson gives your missions a shared vocabulary: "action stations" instead of "risk tier escalation", "hull integrity" instead of "context window consumption", "man overboard" instead of "stuck agent replacement". The names stick. So do the habits.
- Risk-gated execution — Four station tiers (Patrol through Trafalgar) classify every task before it runs. High-risk work requires human confirmation; low-risk work flows without ceremony.
- Damage control built in — Ten named procedures for stuck agents, context exhaustion, faulty output, budget overruns, and mission abort. These are protocols, not improvisation.
- A decision log by default — Captain's log, quarterdeck reports, and turnover briefs are written as the mission runs. Every decision is auditable after the session ends.
Nelson coordinates its own development — recent releases have been planned and executed as Nelson missions.
Who is this for?
- You run Claude Code missions spanning multiple files or modules in parallel
- You want structured checkpoints, risk classification, and a decision log
- You've lost work to context exhaustion and want systematic handover procedures
- You care about auditability — knowing what was decided, by which agent, and why
It may be overkill if you're doing a quick, single-file edit.
How Nelson compares
Both rapid-execution frameworks and Nelson's structured approach are useful — they optimise for different constraints.
| Approach | Best when | Trade-off | |---|---|---| | Nelson Navy structure | You need repeatable quality gates, explicit ownership, and a clear decision log across parallel work | More setup and coordination overhead up front | | OmO/RuFlo-style rapid flow | You need the fastest possible movement on a narrow, low-risk path | Less formal checkpointing and role separation |
If you need fast parallel execution with minimal ceremony, OmO or RuFlo may suit you better. If coordination, auditability, and safe scaling matter more than raw tempo, Nelson is the better fit.
How it works
Execution modes
The skill selects one of three execution modes based on your mission:
| Mode | When to use | How it works |
|------|------------|--------------|
| single-session | Sequential tasks, low complexity, heavy same-file editing | Claude works through tasks in order within one session |
| subagents | Parallel tasks where workers only report back to the coordinator | Claude spawns subagents that work independently and return results |
| agent-team | Parallel tasks where workers need to coordinate with each other | Claude creates an agent team with direct teammate-to-teammate communication |
Chain of command
Nelson uses a three-tier hierarchy. The admiral coordinates captains, each captain commands a named ship, and crew members aboard each ship do the specialist work.
┌───────────┐
│ Admiral │
└─────┬─────┘
┌─────────────┼─────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐
│ Captain │ │ Captain │ │ Red-Cell │
│ HMS Daring │ │ HMS Kent │ │ Navigator │
└─────┬─────┘ └─────┬─────┘ └───────────┘
┌────┼────┐ ┌────┼────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
XO PWO MEO PWO NO COX
Squadron level:
- Admiral — Coordinates the mission, delegates tasks, resolves blockers. Coordinates final synthesis but does not perform it directly. There is always exactly one.
- Captains — Each commands a named ship. Breaks their task into sub-tasks, crews specialist roles, coordinates crew, and verifies outputs. Implements directly only when the task is atomic. Typically 2-7 per mission.
- Red-cell navigator — Challenges assumptions, validates outputs, and checks rollback readiness. Added for medium/high risk work.
Ship level (crew per captain, 0-4 members):
| Role | Abbr | Function | When to crew | |------|------|----------|-------------| | Executive Officer | XO | Integration & orchestration | 3+ crew or interdependent sub-tasks | | Principal Warfare Officer | PWO | Core implementation | Almost always (default doer) | | Navigating Officer | NO | Codebase research & exploration | Unfamiliar code, large codebase | | Marine Engineering Officer | MEO | Testing & validation | Station 1+ or non-trivial verification | | Weapon Engineering Officer | WEO | Config, infrastructure & systems integration | Significant config/infra work | | Logistics Officer | LOGO | Documentation & dependency management | Docs as deliverable, dep management | | Coxswain | COX | Standards review & quality | Station 1+ with established conventions |
Navigating Officer (NO) and Coxswain (COX) are read-only — they report findings but never modify files.
Ships are named from real Royal Navy warships, matched roughly to task weight: frigates for general-purpose, destroyers for high-tempo, patrol vessels for small tasks, historic flagships for critical-path, and submarines for research.
Squadron size caps at 10 squadron-level agents (admiral, captains, red-cell navigator). Crew are additional — up to 4 per ship. If a task needs more crew, split it into two ships.
Here's an example of the crew in action: we create four captains. Two of the captains are single-crew (minimum, since captains don't do the work themselves) and two of them are two-crew. So we have 11 agents working together in total:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/f3bafd06-790e-44a0-9061-7d1fd666b445
Action stations (risk tiers)
Every task is classified into a risk tier before execution. Higher tiers require more controls:
| Station | Name | When | Required controls | |---------|------|------|-------------------| | 0 | Patrol | Low blast radius, easy rollback | Basic validation, rollback step | | 1 | Caution | User-visible changes, moderate impact | Independent review, negative test, rollback note | | 2 | Action | Security/compliance/data integrity implications | Red-cell review, failure-mode checklist, go/no-go checkpoint | | 3 | Trafalgar | Irreversible actions, regulated/safety-sensitive | Minimal scope, human confirmation, two-step verification, contingency plan |
Tasks at Station 1 and above also run a failure-mode checklist:
- What could fail in production?
- How would we detect it quickly?
- What is the fastest safe rollback?
- What dependency could invalidate this plan?
- What assumption is least certain?
Damage control
Most agent frameworks assume the happy path. Nelson includes battle-tested procedures f