Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. Aspects may include a base station coordinating a first UE and a second UE establishing relay link for directly communicating with one and other. In some cases, the relay link may be a beamformed relay link and the base station and one of the UEs may use to the relay link to communicate if a direct communication link between the base station and the UE fails. The base station may transmit reference signal information to the first and second UE for establishing a relay link. The first and second UE may perform one or more relay link beam sweeping procedures based on the reference signal information and establish the relay link based on the beam sweep procedures. In some cases, coordinating the relay link may be based on one of the UEs transmitting a triggering message to the base station.