Pattern · advanced
Multi-Agent Pattern
Multi-agent systems split work across specialized agents with defined roles, handoffs, and shared state.
Multi-agent architectures assign work to multiple specialized agents that coordinate via messages, a supervisor, or shared state.
When to use
- Distinct skills (research vs writing vs QA)
- Different tool permission sets
- Parallelizable subtasks
When not to use
- One tool loop would suffice
- You cannot define handoff contracts
- Cost/latency budgets are tight
Common topologies
| Topology | Description |
|---|---|
| Supervisor | Manager delegates and merges |
| Peer swarm | Agents converse toward a goal |
| Pipeline | A → B → C sequential specialists |
| Hierarchical | Managers of managers |
Contracts that prevent chaos
- Shared state schema
- Explicit done definitions
- Single writer for critical fields
- Timeouts on waiting for peers
- Budget split across agents
Failure modes
- Infinite debates
- Duplicate side effects
- Contradictory outputs
- Privilege leakage via chat
Evaluation
Test handoffs, conflict resolution, and total cost vs single-agent baseline on the same tasks.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
When should you use multi-agent architectures?
Use multi-agent when specialization, privilege separation, or parallel workstreams clearly beat a single agent—otherwise the coordination cost usually wins.