dispatching-parallel-agents

Dispatching Parallel Agents

Overview

When you have multiple independent problems — different failing test files, different broken subsystems, different bugs — investigating them sequentially wastes wall-clock time. Each investigation is independent, so each can happen concurrently in its own subagent.

Core principle: One subagent per independent problem domain. Let them work in parallel. Integrate at the end.

Distinct from workflow-subagent-driven: That skill executes a plan serially (one task at a time) because plan tasks typically share files. This skill runs investigations concurrently because the problems are disjoint.

When to Use

• 3+ test files failing with clearly unrelated root causes
• Multiple subsystems broken independently (e.g. auth + billing + email)
• Independent code audits (e.g. run all SAST skills at once)
• Parallel documentation / dependency upgrades across unrelated modules
• Each problem can be understood and fixed without state from the others

When NOT to use:

• Failures look related — fixing one might fix the others (investigate together first)
• You need full-system context to understand what's broken
• Exploratory debugging — you don't yet know what the problem is
• Subagents would touch the same files (they will conflict)

                  ┌─ Multiple problems?
                  │        │
                  │        ▼
                  │   Independent? ──── no ── Single investigation, sequential
                  │        │
                  │        yes
                  │        │
                  │        ▼
                  │   Shared files?  ──── yes ── Sequential subagents (avoid conflicts)
                  │        │
                  │        no
                  │        │
                  │        ▼
                  └──→ PARALLEL DISPATCH

The Workflow

1. Identify independent domains
2. Build one focused prompt per domain
3. Dispatch all subagents in the same message (parallel)
4. Collect returns
5. Verify no file-level conflicts
6. Run the full suite
7. Integrate