---
title: "Share a library with your team"
description: "Use when you want teammates to read the same books. Covers sharing books through the team library, setting read or write access by department, and committing a project shelf file."
url: https://docs.heytrove.ai/usage/share-a-library
updated: 2026-10-06
---

# Share a library with your team

> Load this page when: you need to share books with your team

## For agents

- Put team knowledge in the team library. Do not keep it in a personal library or a repo file.
- Share with `trove team access grant <id>`. Default to read access.
- Use `trove team access scope` for departments. Give write access only to people with authority over the topic.
- Run `trove init --name "<project>"` and commit `.trove/shelf.json`.

Share your [books](https://docs.heytrove.ai/concepts/library-and-books.md) so that teammates and their agents read the same knowledge.

## Before you start

- Trove is installed (see [Install](https://docs.heytrove.ai/install.md)).
- Your team has a paid plan, and you own the book you want to share.
- To scope a share or give write access, you need the OWNER or ADMIN role. See [Teams](https://docs.heytrove.ai/concepts/teams.md).

## Steps

1. **Share the book.** Ask your agent: "Share the engineering playbook with my team." The book goes to the whole team with read access.
2. **Choose the departments.** Ask your agent: "Share the engineering playbook only with the Engineering department." A teammate reads the books of their own department and of the departments near it. Name each department you want.
3. **Set write access with care.** Ask your agent to give write access only for a book whose owner has authority over the topic. Everyone else reads.
4. **Check who sees what.** Ask your agent: "Show me which department reads which Trove book."
5. **Share the [project shelf](https://docs.heytrove.ai/concepts/shelves.md).** In the repository, ask your agent: "Create a Trove shelf for this project." Commit `.trove/shelf.json`. Every teammate's agent then reads the same books first.

## Prompt to paste

```text
Put the engineering playbook in the team library. Share it with the Engineering department and the departments near it, read only. Then create a project shelf for this repository with the books that matter here, and remind me to commit .trove/shelf.json.
```

## What you will see

The agent reports each change. When you ask who sees what, it shows a matrix of departments against books. The agent then creates `./.trove/shelf.json` and tells you to commit it. After you commit it, a teammate who clones the repository gets the same shelf.

The matrix looks like this:

```text
<department>  <book title>  read
```

## What your teammates should do

Shared books help only when someone reads them. Tell teammates to ask their agent explicitly: "Search my Trove library for how we handle retries." That starts the [librarian](https://docs.heytrove.ai/subagents/librarian.md), which picks the books and pages and starts the [readers](https://docs.heytrove.ai/subagents/item-reader.md) on its own. We are actively working on making the librarian start automatically and reliably, but today you should not rely on it.

## Direct CLI

Your agent runs these through the `trove` command. You can run them yourself in a terminal, but asking your agent is the recommended way: it picks the right flags, waits for processing and checks the result.

| Task | Command |
| --- | --- |
| Share a book with the team | `trove team access grant <id>` |
| Limit a share to departments | `trove team access scope <id> --dept <slug>` |
| Give write access | `trove team access level <id> --access write` |
| See who reads what | `trove team access matrix` |
| Create a project shelf | `trove init --name "<project>"` |

See the [CLI reference](https://docs.heytrove.ai/reference/cli.md).

## Next

- [Teams](https://docs.heytrove.ai/concepts/teams.md)
- [Shelves](https://docs.heytrove.ai/concepts/shelves.md)
- [Run Trove for a team](https://docs.heytrove.ai/best-practices/run-trove-for-a-team.md)