/hq-cowork-dm — DM a teammate from a sandboxed agent

SkillCommunication

Send HQ Sync direct messages from Cowork through the host-side DM tool.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Connect ahel once, and every AI you use reads what you have installed.

Then ask your AI: use the /hq-cowork-dm — DM a teammate from a sandboxed agent skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by indigoai-us/hq-core in core/packages/hq-pack-cowork/skills/hq-cowork-dm/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

Sends person-to-person HQ DMs from inside Cowork, where the hq CLI is unreachable. Routes through the host-side MCP server. The recipient gets it as an HQ Desktop App notification.

Args: $ARGUMENTS — recipient + message, plus optional flags.

ArgMeaning
<recipient>Email address or personUid of the teammate. Required.
<message>The message body. Required.
--prompt <text>Agent-context prompt the recipient can one-click copy into their agent.
--details <text>Longer detail shown in the recipient's DM detail window.
--at <ISO8601>Schedule delivery at an absolute time (store-and-forward).
--in <delay>Schedule after a relative delay: 30s, 10m, 2h, 1d.

Humanize before send

Before calling the tool, run the channel-aware humanize pass on the message (and any prompt / details text) per core/knowledge/public/hq-core/humanize-before-send.md — channel cowork-dm, default intensity light: strip the obvious AI tells while keeping the message terse and conversational. Never rewrite the recipient or scheduling fields.

Call the tool

{
  "recipient": "<email-or-personUid>",
  "message": "<body>",
  "prompt": "<optional agent prompt>",
  "details": "<optional detail body>",
  "in": "30m"
}

Call mcp__hq__hq_dm. Use at OR in, not both.

Notes

  • Reach is scoped to shared companies. You can only DM people you share an active company with. A delivery failure usually means no shared company.
  • DM yourself for a note-to-self / reminder (use your own email).
  • Receive-only in the app — the HQ Desktop App shows incoming DMs; sending happens from a session or the CLI (this tool).

When to use this instead of /dm

Only inside Cowork or another sandboxed plugin host. On a host-side session, prefer the unprefixed /dm (or hq dm).

Why this skill exists

hq dm authenticates with the user's Cognito session under ~/.hq, which isn't visible from Cowork's Linux VM. The host-side MCP server runs the real hq dm and returns its confirmation back to the sandboxed agent.

Signals

GitHub stars
84
Forks
15
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Gateway key
hq-cowork-dm
Source
github.com/indigoai-us/hq-core