Dispatching Parallel Agents

Quick Start

Analyze - Identify independent vs dependent tasks
Group - Create parallel groups with no shared dependencies
Specialize - Assign agents by expertise (explorer, implementer, reviewer)
Dispatch - Fan-out tasks with timeouts and concurrency limits
Aggregate - Combine results using merge, consensus, or priority
Handle Errors - Retry failed, continue with partial, or fail-fast

Features

Feature	Description	Guide
Task Analysis	Identify parallelizable work	No data deps, no shared files, no state
Agent Specialization	Match agent type to task	Explorer, implementer, tester, reviewer
Fan-Out/Fan-In	Parallel dispatch and aggregation	Promise.all for dispatch, merge results
Concurrency Limits	Control parallel agent count	Prevent resource exhaustion
Timeout Handling	Bound execution time per agent	Race with timeout, handle gracefully
Error Strategies	Handle partial failures	Retry, continue, or fail-fast

Common Patterns

# Parallel Execution Model
         [Main Agent (Orchestrator)]
                    |
         [Task Analysis & Distribution]
                    |
    +---------------+---------------+
    |               |               |
[Agent A]      [Agent B]      [Agent C]
(Task 1)       (Task 2)       (Task 3)
    |               |               |
    +-------+-------+-------+-------+
            |
    [Aggregation & Integration]
            |
      [Final Response]

TIMING:
Sequential: ████████████████████████████
Parallel:   ████████████  (max of tasks)

// Fan-out/Fan-in Pattern
const [security, performance, style] = await Promise.all([
  spawnAgent({ type: 'reviewer', focus: 'security' }),
  spawnAgent({ type: 'reviewer', focus: 'performance' }),
  spawnAgent({ type: 'reviewer', focus: 'style' }),
]);
return combineReviews([security, performance, style]);

// Parallelization Criteria
CAN PARALLELIZE:
- Independent code changes (different files)
- Research on different topics
- Tests for different modules
- Multi-concern code reviews

CANNOT PARALLELIZE:
- Tasks with data dependencies
- Sequential workflow steps
- Tasks modifying same files
- Tasks sharing mutable state

# Agent Specialization
| Type | Strengths | Best For |
|------|-----------|----------|
| explorer | Finding files, patterns | Initial exploration |
| implementer | Writing production code | Features, bug fixes |
| tester | Test design, edge cases | Unit/integration tests |
| reviewer | Issue identification | Code review, security |
| documenter | Clear explanations | Docs, comments |

Best Practices

Do	Avoid
Identify truly independent tasks first	Parallelizing tasks that share state
Use specialized agents for concerns	One agent doing everything
Set appropriate timeouts per agent	Unbounded execution time
Handle partial failures gracefully	Ignoring failed agent results
Use concurrency limits	Spawning unlimited agents
Aggregate results meaningfully	Skipping result combination
Document dependencies between tasks	Assuming order of completion
Clean up agent resources	Resource leaks from agents

Related Skills

optimizing-tokens - Efficient context per agent
thinking-sequentially - Order dependent tasks
writing-plans - Plan parallel execution phases
executing-plans - Execute with parallel steps

dispatching-parallel-agents

Dispatching Parallel Agents

Quick Start

Features

Common Patterns

Best Practices

Related Skills