sadd:multi-agent-patterns

Multi-agent architectures distribute work across multiple agent invocations, each with its own focused context. When designed well, this distribution enables capabilities beyond single-agent limits. When designed poorly, it introduces coordination overhead that negates benefits. The critical insight is that sub-agents exist primarily to isolate context, not to anthropomorphize role division.

Multi-agent systems address single-agent context limitations through distribution. Three dominant patterns exist: supervisor/orchestrator for centralized control, peer-to-peer/swarm for flexible handoffs, and hierarchical for layered abstraction. The critical design principle is context isolation—sub-agents exist primarily to partition context rather than to simulate organizational roles.

Effective multi-agent systems require explicit coordination protocols, consensus mechanisms that avoid sycophancy, and careful attention to failure modes including bottlenecks, divergence, and error propagation.

Entwerfen Sie Multiagentenarchitekturen für komplexe Aufgaben. Wird verwendet, wenn die Kontextgrenzen einzelner Agenten überschritten werden, wenn Aufgaben auf natürliche Weise in Unteraufgaben zerlegt werden oder wenn die Spezialisierung von Agenten die Qualität verbessert. Quelle: neolabhq/context-engineering-kit.