When a coding agent needs a lead’s decision
As coding agents take on more of the implementation, they run into decisions that are not theirs to make, and not the developer’s either: an architecture choice, a change to a public API, a data model the whole team will live with, a product tradeoff. CruxDeck lets the agent take that question to the tech lead, engineering manager, architect or CTO who should answer it, with the options it has worked out.
Draft. CruxDeck is not yet available. This page describes it as it will be at launch.
What reaches you
Not a one-line ping in chat. The agent packages the question before anything is sent.
A real question
The question, and, when the agent includes them, its background, the options with their pros and cons, its recommendation, and screenshots or files. Your CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md can ask it to include them every time.
Marked by urgency
The agent says whether it is waiting. Blocking requests are marked, and the inbox can show them alone; the rest can be reviewed while work continues, or simply recorded for the team.
Sent to the right person
A request can be assigned to the reviewer who owns the call, and any member can change who that is. The reviewer is notified. If a request needs review and has no reviewer, the organization’s owners and admins are notified.
Where you decide
In the tools your team already works in.
In Slack or Microsoft Teams
After your team connects Slack or Teams and chooses a channel, or a channel for a project, new requests that need review are posted there: the question, the agent’s recommendation when it gives one, and the options to choose from. Choose one, answer with something else, or ask for more information without leaving the thread, and the outcome is posted back to it.
In CruxDeck
Open the full request for what a chat card leaves out: the background, each option’s pros and cons, screenshots and files side by side, and the history.
Where the team can see it
People with access to the channel can see the request and reply in its thread, as with any message. Those replies are not copied into CruxDeck; the actions on the card update the decision’s record.
What you do
You judge the call. Nobody relays the question to you, and nobody pastes your answer back.
Decide
Choose an option, answer with something else, or ask the agent for more information, from the thread or in CruxDeck. Add an explanation in CruxDeck, and it stays with the decision.
The agent carries on
The agent reads the outcome back through MCP, with any explanation you added, and gets on with the work. The developer does not have to carry it.
A person always has the final say
An agent can file, update and withdraw its own requests, but it can never answer one. Only a person resolves a decision.
What stays
Every call is kept, with any explanation given.
A record of every decision
The question, the options, the answer, the explanation, the reviewer and the history. Next month, a person or an agent can find what was decided and why.
Linked to the work
Decisions link to GitHub and Jira issues. CruxDeck holds the judgment calls, not the tasks.
What it is not
Not a vote
A person resolves a request. It can be assigned to one reviewer, and any member of the team can resolve it. CruxDeck does not run polls or count votes.
Not an approval gate
Approval tools decide whether an agent may take an action. CruxDeck is for choosing between options.
Not another tracker
It does not hold tasks, sprints or a backlog. It holds the decisions, and links them to the tasks in GitHub or Jira.
How decision requests differ from approval gates: decision requests vs. approval gates. How to set an agent up to ask: the escalation guide.
Bring your team’s judgment calls to one place.
CruxDeck isn’t available yet. We’d like to hear how your team handles agent decisions today.