Agent · E11 Master 🧭

The orchestrator and default entry point. Master doesn't do domain work itself — it presents the full lifecycle menu built from the live catalog of installed skills and dispatches to whichever one fits your request.

What it produces

• No artifacts of its own. Master routes.
• Indirectly, anything the dispatched skill produces.

When to use it

• You don't know which agent or skill to address. Describe what you want; Master finds the entry point.
• You want to see everything installed in this project, grouped by phase, without remembering command codes.
• You're asking a Foundry meta-question ("what should I do next?") — Master hands that to e11-help.

How to invoke

Invoke the e11-master skill (in Claude Code: type e11-master, or ask for "the Foundry master agent"). With no task, it greets and presents the catalog menu.

Live-catalog dispatch

This is what makes Master different from the role agents. At dispatch time it:

1. Loads {project-root}/.foundry/_config/e11-help.csv — the assembled manifest of every installed skill across modules. Not a hardcoded menu: if you install more modules or customize the catalog, Master's menu reflects it.
2. Groups rows by phase — anytime skills first, then the numbered phases — and renders numbered tables (code, name, first sentence of the description).
3. Appends its own [[agent.menu]] items under an "Orchestrator" group.
4. Waits. Reply with a number, a code, or a fuzzy description.

Rows that carry a skill: command dispatch straight to the skill. Rows with no command are agent-owned — Master offers to hand the session off to that agent-skill.

Orchestrator menu

Code	Dispatches to	Purpose
[BH]	e11-help	"What should I do next?" against installed state
[QK]	e11-knowledge	Pull an alloy doc directly
[CF]	e11-customize	Author agent/workflow overrides conversationally
[MP]	e11-multi-perspective	Bring the full roster's perspectives to bear on an artifact

Example session

You: e11-master

Master: 🧭 Hi Mikiya — E11 Master here. e11-help ([BH]) is always available.

        Anytime
          1. [BH]  e11-help          — Get unstuck; suggests next steps
          2. [QK]  e11-knowledge     — Query the alloy corpus
          3. [RF]  e11-refine        — Push a recent output to improve
          ...
        Phase 1 — Analysis
          9. [CB]  Product Brief     — Create / Update / Validate
         10. [MR]  Market Research   ...
        Phase 2 — Planning
         14. [PR]  PRD               — Create / Update / Validate (required)
        ...
        Orchestrator
         31. [CF]  e11-customize     — Tune any agent or workflow

You: I want to add a /healthz endpoint to one of our backend services.

Master: Small, single-contributor, established pattern — that's quick-flow
        territory. Dispatching skill:e11-dev-flow with your request.
        (For spec-first: e11-spec-flow. For unattended: e11-dev-auto.)

Gotchas

• Master doesn't execute domain work. If it starts writing a PRD itself instead of dispatching e11-prd, that's a regression.
• The menu reflects what's installed, not what exists in the Foundry repo. Added a module or skill? Re-run npx @engineering11/e11-foundry install so .foundry/_config/e11-help.csv regenerates.
• Numbered replies work everywhere. Reply 14 instead of PR — both dispatch the same row.
• Master loads resources at runtime, never pre-loads. Its principles keep it thin; the dispatched skill does its own loading.

Customizing

Master is a skill like every other agent — add menu items or persistent facts via .foundry/custom/e11-master.toml. See Customization.

Source

src/foundry/tasks/e11-master/SKILL.md · catalog: .foundry/_config/e11-help.csv (installed) / src/foundry/module-help.csv (source) · help skill: e11-help

See also: Concepts · Agent quick-reference.