mayor-worker-pattern

Prevent coordination collapse in multi-agent orchestration by separating planning from execution. A central Mayor creates isolated tasks for ephemeral workers, using a ledger for controlled handoffs to ensure reliable, scalable collaboration.

Ledger-based task handoff works by recording task assignments and results externally rather than allowing direct inter-worker communication. This controlled coordination ensures traceability and prevents cross-task contamination in multi-agent orchestration.

Isolate tasks by making workers ephemeral and stateless, executing one task at a time. This two-tier architecture reduces cross-task contamination and simplifies recovery during large-scale multi-agent orchestration.

This multi-agent orchestration pattern is designed for orchestrating three or more agents on related projects. Deploying it at a smaller scale may introduce unnecessary hierarchical overhead without yielding significant reliability improvements.

The best way to scale agent orchestration is implementing a strict Mayor-Worker hierarchy. A central Mayor coordinates global work while isolated, stateless workers execute single tasks, enabling controlled and scalable collaboration.

Direct inter-worker communication causes failures by creating uncontrolled dependencies and cross-task contamination. The Mayor-Worker pattern enforces isolation by routing all task coordination through an external ledger.