orchestration-protocols

Coordinate multiple agents: parallel spawning, health monitoring, circuit breakers, escalation. Use for parallel agents, agent timeouts, fan-out tasks, multi-agent delegation.

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Securityby

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Orchestration Protocols

Runtime patterns for delegated agents.

Active Steering

Intervene early on:

Signal	Action
Failing tests/builds	Check dependency resolution; revert if builds break
Unexpected file changes	Revert; enforce partition
Scope creep	Redirect to scoped files only
Circular behavior	Halt; switch approach
Intent misunderstanding	Clarify prompt; re-delegate

When redirecting, state why + how:

"Don't modify libs/data/src/lib/product.ts — shared across features. Add the new query in libs/data/src/lib/reviews.ts."

Sub-agents: steer live, within the first 5 min. Background agents: no live steering — front-load prompt specificity, partition constraints, acceptance criteria checklists.

Background Agents

Run autonomously in isolated Git worktrees. Reserve for well-scoped tasks >5 min with clear acceptance criteria.

Spawn: Delegate Session → Background → Select agent → Enter prompt
Interrupted: opencastle convoy resume picks up where the run stopped

Parallel Research Protocol

Spawn parallel research sub-agents if: ≥3 independent questions AND answers span multiple codebase areas — else handle sequentially.

Spawn Strategy

Rule	Detail
Divide by topic/area	Each researcher owns a coherent domain
Max 3–5 researchers	More: diminishing returns, token waste
Focused scope per agent	Explicit dirs, file patterns, or questions
Economy/Standard tier	Manage cost for research sub-agents

Prompt template:

Research: [specific question]
Scope: [files/directories to search]
Return: key findings, relevant file paths (with line numbers), patterns, unanswered questions

Result Merge Protocol

Collect all results into single context
Checkpoint: verify every researcher returned a result (no timeout/error); re-run failures before proceeding.
Deduplicate (same file/pattern counts once)
Resolve conflicts — specific evidence beats general observations
Synthesize into concise context block for implementation prompts
Checkpoint: confirm synthesized block covers every original question; mark unanswered as blockers.

Batch Reviews

Group by domain (UI, data); run fast reviews in parallel for independent outputs
Review sequentially when outputs share partition boundary
Combine related artifacts into one panel question when sharing acceptance criteria

Context Compaction

Summarize prior phase output before passing to next agent. Extract: files changed, key decisions, verification (pass/fail), blockers. Discard: raw tool output, reasoning traces, failed attempts.

Template:

### Prior Phase Output
**Phase [N] — [Agent Name] — [Task Title]**
- Files changed: [list]
- Decisions: [key decisions affecting downstream work]
- Verification: [lint ✅ | types ✅ | tests ✅]
- Blockers: [none | list]

Health & Recovery Reference

Health thresholds, escalation path, Error Recovery Playbook, Circuit Breaker: see REFERENCE.md.

CLI (spawn & monitor)

Use OpenCastle CLI (npx opencastle or bin/cli.mjs):

opencastle convoy run --file convoy.yml --dry-run
opencastle convoy run --file convoy.yml --verbose
opencastle convoy resume
opencastle convoy
opencastle convoy retry

Post-run verification (copy-paste checks):

Convoy records to .opencastle/convoy.db and .opencastle/logs/; there is no plain-text run log to tail.

opencastle convoy --json          # last run's status, machine-readable
opencastle convoy run --status    # current convoy state from convoy.db
tail -n 50 .opencastle/logs/events.ndjson | jq -c 'select(.outcome != "success")'

Validation & Verification Checkpoints

Phase	Check	Command / Action
Pre-spawn	Inputs present (task, scope, ACs)	`test -s convoy.yml \|\| exit 1`
During-run	Watch for failures	`opencastle convoy run --status`
Pre-merge	No task left failed or gate-failed	`opencastle convoy --json \| jq -e '.failed == 0'`
Dead letters	Queue is empty	`opencastle convoy run --dlq-list`
Post-merge	Lint + smoke tests pass	`npm run lint && npm test -- -t "smoke"`
Blocker	Any failure	Block merge; reopen to original researcher(s)

Repository: monkilabs/opencastle
Path: src/orchestrator/skills/orchestration-protocols/SKILL.md
Commit: f297837

Last updated: 6 days ago
First committed: 5 months ago

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