run-an-agent-team

Run an Agent Team

Complex tasks overwhelm a single AI agent — the context gets muddy, quality drops, and it does everything serially. A small team of specialized agents, each with a focused role and clean context, can tackle it in parallel and check each other's work. This designs that team for your task: the roles, how they coordinate and hand off, what context each needs (and what to isolate), and the guardrails — turning "one agent doing everything" into a coordinated effort.

What This Skill Produces

• The task decomposition — the task broken into distinct agent roles, each with a focused responsibility (researcher, drafter, critic, integrator, etc.)
• A coordination pattern — whether agents run in parallel or sequence, how their outputs combine, and where the hand-offs are
• Context design — what each agent needs to know, and (crucially) what to keep isolated so one agent's context doesn't muddy another's (the key to why teams beat one agent)
• A review/quality step — a separate agent or pass to critique and integrate, so quality is checked, not assumed
• Guardrails — how to keep the team on track (clear objectives, defined outputs, a human checkpoint) and avoid runaway loops or drift
• A right-sized recommendation — including when a single agent is genuinely better (not everything needs a team)

Required Inputs

Ask for these if not provided:

• The task — the complex thing you want a team to tackle
• Your setup — the AI tool/framework you're using (Claude Code sub-agents, an agent framework, or manual multi-chat)
• The subtasks — the natural pieces, if you can see them
• Quality bar & stakes — how much the output matters (drives the review rigor)
• Constraints — cost, time, and how much human oversight you want

Framework: Decompose, Isolate, Coordinate, Review

1. Check it needs a team. Not every task does — if it's simple or highly sequential with shared context, one agent is better. Use a team when parts are genuinely parallel or benefit from distinct, isolated perspectives.
2. Decompose into roles. Break the task into focused responsibilities, each an agent — a researcher, a builder, a critic, an integrator — so each has one clear job.
3. Isolate context deliberately. The power of a team is clean, separate context per agent — decide what each needs and what to keep apart, so perspectives stay distinct and context stays sharp.
4. Choose the coordination pattern. Parallel (independent then combine), sequential (hand-offs), or a mix — and define exactly how outputs pass between agents and merge.
5. Add a review pass. A separate critic/integrator step catches errors and combines the work — don't trust unreviewed parallel output.
6. Guardrail it. Clear objectives, defined output formats, iteration limits, and a human checkpoint keep the team from drifting or looping.

Output Format

Agent team: task [x] · setup [y]

Needs a team? [yes — parts are parallel/benefit from isolation / no — one agent is better because Z].

Roles

| Agent | Responsibility | Context it needs / isolate |

|---|---|---|

| [researcher] | | |

| [builder] | | |

| [critic] | | |

| [integrator] | | |

Coordination: [parallel / sequential / mix] — outputs combine by [how].

Review pass: [critic/integrator checks & merges].

Guardrails: clear objectives · defined outputs · iteration limit · human checkpoint.

Quality Checks

• [ ] Checks whether a team is actually warranted (vs one agent)
• [ ] Decomposes into focused agent roles
• [ ] Deliberately designs isolated vs shared context (the key advantage)
• [ ] Defines the coordination pattern and how outputs combine
• [ ] Includes a review/integration pass
• [ ] Adds guardrails against drift and runaway loops

Anti-Patterns

• Using a team for a task one agent handles better.
• Agents with muddy, shared context (loses the whole advantage).
• No review pass — trusting unchecked parallel output.
• Vague roles that overlap and conflict.
• Missing guardrails — runaway loops or drift with no human checkpoint.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "How do I use multiple AI agents to build this?"
• "Set up an agent team to research and write this report."
• "Orchestrate several agents for this complex task."
• "Should this be one agent or a team, and how do I structure it?"
• "Design a parallel agent workflow for this."