charlieviettq Dispatching parallel agents
Gate (required)
Use this skill only if:
- User or parent explicitly allows parallel subagents, and
- Tasks are independent (no shared files, no ordering dependency on partial output)
If either condition fails, use sequential incremental-implementation instead.
When to use
- Independent reviews (security + tests + API contract) on the same commit
- Parallel research spikes with separate output files
- Large plan with disjoint file ownership per task
When not to use
- Single shared module being edited by multiple agents
- Database migrations or sequential deploy steps
- User did not approve multi-agent execution
Workflow
- Partition — list tasks with disjoint
Files:sets - Brief — each agent gets scope, constraints, verify command, output format
- Dispatch — run parallel agents; cap concurrency to what the harness supports
- Collect — gather outputs without assuming correctness
- Integrate — parent reconciles conflicts, runs full verification, single commit strategy per user rules
Integration checklist
- No conflicting edits to the same paths
- Combined diff reviewed by parent (or
requesting-code-review) - Full test/lint suite on integrated result
- User informed of what each agent did
Anti-patterns
- Parallel implementers on the same feature branch without file boundaries
- Merging subagent output without reading diffs
- Spawning agents to avoid reading the codebase
Related
subagent-driven-development, incremental-implementation, requesting-code-review, verify-before-done
Orchestration patterns inspired by obra/superpowers (MIT).