orchestration-template

Sub-Agent Orchestration Template

This is a reference template for creating skills that use parallel sub-agents. It is NOT directly invocable - use it as a pattern when building new orchestrated skills.

When to Use This Pattern

Use sub-agent orchestration when:

• Task has 3+ independent research phases
• Each phase can run in parallel without dependencies
• Results need synthesis into a unified output
• Context isolation improves quality (prevents contamination)

Do NOT use when:

• Task is simple and linear
• Phases depend on each other sequentially
• Interactive dialogue is needed throughout

Orchestration Structure

Phase 1: Planning

1. TaskCreate for overall work item
2. Identify independent workstreams
3. Create sub-tasks for each workstream
4. Set dependencies with TaskUpdate (addBlockedBy)

Phase 2: Parallel Execution

Launch N agents in parallel using Task tool:

Task tool calls (in single message for parallelism):

Agent 1: subagent_type: "Explore", model: "haiku"

- Purpose: [specific research goal]
- Tools: Read, Glob, Grep (read-only)

Agent 2: subagent_type: "Explore", model: "haiku"

- Purpose: [different research goal]
- Tools: Read, Glob, Grep (read-only)

Agent 3: subagent_type: "general-purpose"

- Purpose: [complex analysis requiring writes]
- Tools: All available

Phase 3: Synthesis

1. Collect results from all agents
2. Identify conflicts or gaps
3. Generate unified output
4. Update tasks to completed

Model Selection for Sub-Agents

Sub-Agent Purpose	Model	Rationale
Read-only search/exploration	Haiku	Fast, cheap, isolated context
Analysis with context	Sonnet	Good reasoning
Complex synthesis	Sonnet	Balanced cost/quality
Deep architecture reasoning	Opus	Extended thinking needed