Multi-Agent Wiki

Decision Matrix

Pick a multi-agent pattern by task characteristics

By task characteristic

Task characteristicRecommendedAvoidWhy
Single-turn expert queryAgents-as-toolsHandoff / Group ChatThe host can simply retain control
Multi-turn domain takeoverHandoffAgents-as-toolsThe specialist needs to talk to the user directly
Fixed flowSequential Pipeline / WorkflowSwarmDeterminism is the point
Many independent subtasksParallel Fan-out / GatherSequentialParallelism gives the most speedup
Long, complex tasksGraph Workflow + Task RegistryPure prompt orchestrationResume, cancel, trace required
Quality review neededGenerator-Critic / Refinement LoopSingle agent self-gradingSelf-grade often reproduces the same error
Comparing multiple optionsDebate / Voting / MoASingle pathMultiple candidates surface conflict
Async multi-party workBlackboard / Event BusGroup ChatShared state is steadier than long conversations
High-risk operationHuman-in-the-loop + GuardrailsFully automatedPermission and accountability must be explicit
Cross-tool ecosystemMCPCustom tool protocolLowers integration cost
Cross-agent / cross-vendorA2A / ACPPrivate RPCBetter suited to interoperability
IDE to coding agentAgent Client ProtocolAd-hoc HTTP APICloser to coding-agent standard onboarding

By engineering stage

StageGoalRecommended stack
DemoProve it can workSingle Agent + Tools + Agents-as-tools
MVPUsableSupervisor + Handoff + Trace
Internal platformStable, resumableGraph Workflow + Task Registry + Blackboard + MCP
Production platformSecure, auditableRuntime + Guardrails + HITL + Event Bus + Workspace Isolation
EcosystemConnected to other systemsMCP + A2A/ACP + Agent Client Protocol

Anti-patterns

  1. Reaching for a group chat first. Looks like multi-agent, rarely converges.
  2. Long tasks without a state machine. Half-done tasks can't resume or be debugged.
  3. All agents sharing one context. Heavy pollution, permission boundaries vanish.
  4. Code generation without a verifier. Agents confidently produce wrong diffs.
  5. No event log. When something breaks, you can't reconstruct what happened.