Dispatching Parallel Agents

---
name: dispatching-parallel-agents
description: Use when facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
---

# Dispatching Parallel Agents

## Overview

When you have multiple unrelated failures (different test files, different subsystems, different bugs), investigating them sequentially wastes time. Each investigation is independent and can happen in parallel.

**Core principle:** Dispatch one agent per independent problem domain.

## When to Use

Use when: 3+ test files failing with different root causes, multiple subsystems broken independently, each problem can be understood without context from others.

Don't use when: Failures are related, need to understand full system state, agents would interfere.

## The Pattern

1. Identify Independent Domains - Group failures by what's broken
2. Create Focused Agent Tasks - Each agent gets specific scope, clear goal, constraints
3. Dispatch in Parallel
4. Review and Integrate

## Agent Prompt Structure
Good prompts are: Focused (one problem), Self-contained (all context), Specific about output.

## Common Mistakes
❌ Too broad - "Fix all the tests"
❌ No context - agent doesn't know where
❌ No constraints - agent might refactor everything
❌ Vague output - you don't know what changed

## Verification
After agents return: Review each summary, Check for conflicts, Run full suite, Spot check.