# Orchestrate > Use when bounded fan-out, multi-agent research, cross-family review, parallel audits, Herdr control, or autonomous ready-issue implementation helps. Not for tiny work, coupled debugging, or run-until-STOP jobs; use diagnose or autopilot. - Skill: `mblauberg/orchestrate` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 35 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add mblauberg/orchestrate` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/mblauberg/orchestrate/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: mblauberg (https://skillmd.com/u/mblauberg) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/mblauberg/orchestrate --- # Multi-agent orchestration ## Overview Decompose -> waves -> reduce -> gate. Provider-specific adapter definitions and installer mechanics are owned by their adapter and installer surfaces; discover their current capabilities at runtime. ## Rules - **Use parallel fan-out only after the decomposition/value gate passes.** - Preflight dependencies/shared errors. - **No concurrent shared-state writes.** Partition authorised writers into repository `.worktrees/`; otherwise use a serial applier. - Parallel lanes stop ready-to-merge. The chair merges serially, refreshes the next branch from current main, then reruns checks and reviews after commit/tree changes. - **Keep topology exact.** One chair; leaders settle recursive obligations. Handoff is a generation-bound operator action. - **Answer-bearing external work uses a cooperative Fabric request/reply where available; Herdr only observes or sends fire-and-forget steering.** A normal Fabric inbox read claims delivery; acknowledge after durable processing to prevent redelivery. Claim/ack and a correlated reply evidence delivery, not provider liveness or completion. Without a round trip, record `FABRIC-ROUNDTRIP-UNAVAILABLE` and collect a named artifact. - Record worker cwd; never assume repository. - **Workers write full output to files**; return a digest/path. - **A worker's report is a claim, not evidence.** Confirm claimed commits in `git log`, claimed counts against its own transcript, and re-run any failure it calls environmental. Lanes routinely report a clean result their own output contradicts. - **Liveness: size proves nothing.** Compare CPU and session-log mtime; see `worker-liveness.md`. No growth keeps a live worker in the waiting path, but growth is not proof either: a wrapper can sit blocked long after its child exited. A detached task is not dead, and a live wrapper is not working. Observed PID exit is what fences terminal reporting, inspection and reuse. - **Cross-family follows the HARNESS risk ladder.** Targeted lenses plus other primary; family separation is required only for the assurance claim being made, not for ordinary execution. Record terminal skips. - **Configured workspace execution has broad provider choice.** An authorised chair may dispatch ordinary workspace work to any configured provider family; execution freedom is bounded by credential/auth-store exclusions, unrelated path containment, explicit denials, write/resource limits and external-action gates. - **Objective checks outrank opinions. You own the final call.** - Discover current model/tool options at runtime. ## When This Pays Before parallel dispatch, require independent information or artefacts; stable interfaces and dependencies; non-overlapping writes; independently checkable return contracts; and expected information gain **greater than** coordination, shared-state and tool-density cost. If the gate fails, keep serial ownership with the chair or one specialist; shared-error or tightly coupled work stays serial. Choose the smallest passing topology. ## Adaptive Loop 1. Preflight authority/isolation/disclosure/receipts. 2. **Use native same-session subagents first.** Ordinary configured-provider CLI dispatch may use same-family routes. The current `cf_dispatch.sh` distinct-family requirement belongs to its assurance path; ordinary dispatch is owned by `scripts/dispatch_run.py` and may use same-family routes. 3. Dispatch parallel read/partitioned-write and serial shared-state waves; adapt leaders on evidence and keep one chair/stage owner. 4. Reduce to a claim/conflict map; verify the live tree before repair. 5. Add only informative waves: narrow, repair, verify, **cross-family broad review**, or **Document update wave**. 6. **Final gate:** no untriaged P0/P1, missing anchors, unresolved doc drift, unrecorded family status or user gate. Record `CROSS-FAMILY-NOT-RUN` when unavailable. ## Worker Contract Every worker gets identity, objective, authority, paths, output, checks, stop and budget. Where an adapter exposes them, record task class and route (`tier`, `model`, `effort`, receipt); an ordinary alias-only route records its alias and capability limit. Validate payloads, never infer permission. See [orchestration-contract.md](references/orchestration-contract.md). ## Autonomous-implementation mode Pulls **accepted/ready** issues through `implement` unattended; merge stays user-controlled, deferring to the nearest repository merge policy. Lower authority than autopilot's run-until-STOP loop. See [autonomous-implementation.md](references/autonomous-implementation.md). ## References Load relevant [references](references/) only: `trigger-boundary.md`, `routing-and-tiers.md`, `codex-subagents.md`, `orchestration-contract.md`, `dynamic-workflows.md`, `paired-primary.md`, `herdr-panes.md`, `layering-and-context.md`, `retrieval-and-tool-routing.md`, `verification.md`, `cli-headless.md`, `memory-scratchpad.md`, `evaluation-and-observability.md`, `domain-adaptation.md`, `worker-liveness.md`, and `autonomous-implementation.md`. `scripts/` and `evals/` hold helpers/guards; `cf_dispatch.sh` is the direct provider-execution adapter. When Fabric coordination is unavailable, record its result as a named degraded artifact; it is not itself a Fabric round trip. ## Portable artifact Use the skill-owned [coordination summary schema](portable-workflow.v1.json).