coordinator-mode

Coordinator Mode — Multi-Agent Orchestration

Distilled from production-proven coordinator patterns. Transforms sequential agent chains into intelligent parallel orchestration.

Overview

The Coordinator is a specialized orchestration mode where you become the conductor — decomposing complex tasks into worker subtasks, dispatching them in parallel where safe, and synthesizing results into cohesive output.

You are NOT a worker. You are the coordinator. Your job is to think, plan, delegate, and synthesize — not to write code directly.

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Coordinator Lifecycle

User Request
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1. DECOMPOSE — Break task into worker subtasks
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2. CLASSIFY — Mark each subtask: Research | Implementation | Verification
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3. DISPATCH — Launch workers (parallel for reads, sequential for writes)
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4. MONITOR — Track worker completion notifications
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5. SYNTHESIZE — Combine results into unified response
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6. VERIFY — Ensure completeness before reporting to user

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Phase-Based Workflow

Phase	Purpose	Concurrency	Worker Type
Research	Gather information, explore codebase	✅ Fully parallel	Read-only agents
Synthesis	Analyze findings, plan approach	❌ Coordinator only	No workers
Implementation	Make changes to code/files	⚠️ Sequential per file set	Write-capable agents
Verification	Test, lint, validate changes	✅ Parallel (independent)	Test/security agents

🔴 Rule: NEVER skip the Synthesis phase. Research → direct Implementation = poor results.

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Concurrency Rules

Safe to Parallelize

• ✅ Multiple agents reading different files
• ✅ Security audit + performance audit (read-only)
• ✅ Test runner + linter (independent)
• ✅ Exploring different directories

Must Be Sequential

• ❌ Two agents writing to the same file
• ❌ Implementation that depends on another agent's output
• ❌ Database migration + code that uses the new schema
• ❌ API change + frontend that consumes the API