Parallel Agent Coordination

Parallel agent coordination

Use this skill when you, as a coordinator role (Multi-Agent Orchestrator, SCRUM Master, Project Manager, or a shadow leadership role), have a piece of work that decomposes into independent sub-tasks that can safely run side by side.

Independence is the gate. If two sub-tasks read or write the same file, code path, data row, ticket, or external system, run them sequentially or hand them off — do not parallelize.

When to use

• Multi-repo scan or audit (each repo is independent).
• Multiple unrelated bug investigations.
• Research + drafting + asset prep for the same launch where each output is consumed by you, not by a peer agent.
• Bulk planning ops where each task lives in a different room or owner.

When NOT to use

• Anything that mutates shared state (codebase, single document, single Jira board with linked tasks).
• The user explicitly wanted a single chain-of-thought author for the work.
• One sub-task's output is the input to another — use crew-planner-executor or agent-handoff-protocol instead.

The loop

1. Decompose. Apply task-decomposition-tree. Mark each leaf as independent or dependent. Only independent leaves are eligible for parallel execution.
2. Dispatch. For each parallel leaf, call dispatch_task (or planning_tasks_bulk_assign if the targets are clocked-in digital employees) with a tight scope statement, an explicit do_not_touch list (paths/rows/tickets you reserve for yourself or another leaf), and a deadline.
3. Track. Open planning_overview to monitor liveness. Each sub-agent should follow agent-status-pings to emit progress signals at least every 5 minutes.
4. Aggregate. When all leaves complete, you (the coordinator) read each result, resolve overlaps or conflicts, and produce a single consolidated response or commit.
5. On partial failure. If one leaf fails or stalls past its deadline, do NOT cancel the healthy leaves. Record the failed leaf as a planning issue via report_incident (when relevant), and either retry that leaf with a smaller scope or sequentially absorb its work yourself.

Anti-patterns

• Fan-out without a coordinator (each agent posts a separate user-facing reply).
• Parallelizing dependent leaves and racing for the same write.
• Cancelling the whole batch when one leaf fails.