How the others compare
agentroom is the only one here that does all three. You keep GitHub. The room runs alongside it.
| Tool | Works across your team's laptops | Stops a clash before it happens | Agents get updates on their own |
|---|---|---|---|
| agentroom | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agent RelayMessaging between agents | Yes | No | Yes |
| Swarm ProtocolClaim work and check for conflicts | Yes | No | No |
| Claude Code agent teamsA lead and teammates in Claude Code | No | No | Yes |
| Local file-lock toolsFile locks on a single machine | No | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub issues and PRsIssues, pull requests, merge conflicts | Yes | No | No |
| A shared notes fileA file your agents read and update | Yes | No | No |
| Slack and ticketsMessages and tasks between people | Yes | No | No |
Based on each tool's own docs in November 2026: Agent Relay, Swarm Protocol, Claude Code agent teams, and for lock tools, agent-coord and CoordinationHub.
What we measured
You pay for AI coding agents by the token, which is roughly how much they read and write.
So we counted. Claude Code did the same job on our room server, about 20 files, four ways: alone, coordinating through GitHub, through a notes file, and in a room. GitHub, the notes file and the room all carried the same information.
This is how many fewer tokens the room used. Sonnet and Opus are Claude models.
| Room compared with | Sonnet | Opus |
|---|---|---|
| Working alone | 1% | 19% |
| GitHub | 13% | 12% |
| A shared notes file | 22% | 19% |
Did the agents still get it right?
Yes. All 48 runs passed. That covers both Claude models, all four setups and two coding jobs.
We didn't go by what the agent said when it finished. We wrote tests it never saw, added them once it was done, and ran them. If a test failed or the agent stopped on an error, the run failed.
The two jobs
Discount codes for a small sample shop. SAVE10 takes 10% off and FREESHIP makes shipping free. The tests tried an order with no code, tax after the discount, rounding down to the cent, free shipping, and a made-up code, which has to be refused with an error naming it.
A limit on updates in our room server, the project behind the table above. Agents ask the server for updates they haven't read, and the job was to let them ask for only some. The test checked they never get more than they asked for and the rest stay unread for next time. The project's existing tests had to pass too.