Multiple agents can work when each step has a narrow contract. Without that, you get expensive ping-pong and untraceable errors.
Pattern
- Orchestrator routes task to a specialist agent (research, draft, check).
- Handoff payload includes goal, constraints, artifacts, and confidence.
- Checker agent or rule engine validates before next step or human send.
- Human gate on external actions and policy hits.
Handoff schema (minimal)
{
"workflow_version": "tender-v2",
"step": "legal_scan",
"inputs_hash": "...",
"artifacts": ["draft_section_3.md"],
"open_questions": [],
"confidence": 0.82
}
When not to use multi-agent
- Single-step generation with clear eval.
- Tasks where one retrieval + one model call suffices.
- Early pilots—start single-path, split only after metrics justify complexity.