Single versus multiple agents: locate the failing step first
Compare a single assistant executing sequentially with several sharing work, and validate tool problems, task decomposition and handoff costs separately.
Choose an approach
Diagnose single-agent failures before deciding on multiple agents. Tasks requiring distinct expertise or independent work may benefit from delegation; missing material or recurring tool-argument errors do not necessarily improve with more assistants. Fix the task and permissions and verify that benefits justify additional coordination and maintenance.
Delegation adds roles and handoffs
Anthropic recommends starting with simple composable patterns and describes orchestrator-worker tasks. OpenAI’s SDK supports agents as tools and handoffs. These mechanisms enable delegation without guaranteeing that more assistants produce more correct results.
If each step requires the same background, splitting can repeatedly transfer material. Several assistants editing one file also need clear boundaries and merge rules. Distinguish specialized judgments from repeated calls to the same tool so delegation does not conceal interface defects.
Compare final results and information lost during handoffs
Give identical tasks with defined completion criteria to one assistant and an explicitly delegated group. Preserve the same originals and record each role’s actual input. Trace final errors to interpretation, local work or conditions lost in handoffs.
Also test a task that is difficult to split to see whether delegation merely adds waiting. Parallel source checks still need someone to reconcile conflicts instead of concatenating answers. No multi-agent system was run here; architecture diagrams are not evidence of productivity gains.
Choose using call consumption and maintenance effort
Extra roles may duplicate inputs and calls, so measure complete tasks. Long single-agent conversations also require context maintenance; role counts alone do not determine cost. Include errors, interruptions and conflicting results to explain suitability.
A specialized step can first be packaged as a local tool while the original assistant organizes the result. Replay old inputs after the tool upgrade to check whether delegation fixes the observed error. Keep the simpler form if it does not.
Checked sources
These sources support the concepts and methods described here. Examples and test scope are labeled separately; check the version of the tools you use.