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The Meta Agent is the single conversational interface for Super Turtle. It talks to the user in Telegram or CLI, decides execution strategy, and keeps delivery moving. At runtime, it is a player-coach:
  • It can code directly for small, self-contained tasks.
  • It can spawn SubTurtles for larger autonomous work.
  • It supervises progress and reports only meaningful milestones.

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Two-Layer Architecture

Layer 1: Meta Agent

Conversational control plane. Handles user intent, task framing, delegation decisions, and milestone messaging.

Layer 2: SubTurtles

Autonomous background workers that execute scoped coding tasks from state files in .subturtles/<name>/.
The behavior contract for the Meta Agent lives in: 
super_turtle/meta/META_SHARED.md
The contract is injected into both entrypoints: 
# CLI meta entrypoint
./super_turtle/meta/claude-meta

# Telegram bot startup loads META_SHARED.md into META_PROMPT
super_turtle/claude-telegram-bot/src/config.ts
claude-meta appends META_SHARED.md as system prompt, while the Telegram bot loads the same file into META_PROMPT, so both interfaces follow one shared policy.

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What the Meta Agent Owns

Core responsibilities:
  • Interpret user requests in plain language.
  • Choose whether to implement directly or delegate.
  • Seed SubTurtle CLAUDE.md state files.
  • Spawn workers with ctl spawn and monitor progress.
  • Keep updates milestone-focused (not process noise).

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Direct Work vs Delegation

META_SHARED.md defines the decision model:
1

Do it directly for short tasks

Use direct edits for quick, contained changes where spawning overhead would be slower than implementation.
2

Delegate for multi-step work

Spawn SubTurtles when work is multi-file, iterative, or benefits from autonomous test/fix loops.
3

Keep state explicit

Before spawn, write .subturtles/<name>/CLAUDE.md with Current Task, End Goal, and Backlog.
4

Use spawn as the atomic boundary

Prefer a single ctl spawn command to create workspace, seed state, start loop, and register cron supervision.
Example spawn shape: 
./super_turtle/subturtle/ctl spawn docs-agent \
  --type yolo-codex \
  --timeout 1h \
  --state-file /tmp/docs-agent-state.md

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Interface Surfaces

The Meta Agent is exposed primarily through Telegram bot handlers: 
bot.command("status", handleStatus);
bot.command("sub", handleSubturtle);
bot.command("subs", handleSubturtle);
bot.command("subturtles", handleSubturtle);
bot.on("message:voice", handleVoice);
bot.on("message:audio", handleAudio);
This keeps one chat surface for:
  • Direction changes (“build X”, “stop”, “continue”)
  • Progress checks (“how’s it going?”)
  • Voice-first usage when typing is inconvenient

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Voice Mode and Transcription Handling

Voice support is built into the Telegram path (handlers/voice.ts and handlers/audio.ts):
  1. Authorize user and rate-limit request.
  2. Download voice/audio file from Telegram.
  3. Transcribe with transcribeVoice(...).
  4. Show transcript preview in chat.
  5. Route transcript to the active driver.
if (!TRANSCRIPTION_AVAILABLE) {
  await ctx.reply("Voice transcription is not configured. Set OPENAI_API_KEY in .env");
  return;
}
Transcription behavior is configured in: 
super_turtle/claude-telegram-bot/src/config.ts
Key details:
  • OPENAI_API_KEY enables transcription (TRANSCRIPTION_AVAILABLE).
  • TRANSCRIPTION_PROMPT is built from a base prompt plus optional context file.
  • Stop intent detected from transcript can interrupt active work immediately.
Voice input is treated as first-class user intent. In-progress background runs can be preempted or queued so urgent spoken commands are not ignored.