dispatching-parallel-agents

Group failures by independent problem domain, then dispatch one agent per domain with a focused prompt containing the failing test names, error messages, constraints, and expected output. After agents return, review summaries, check for conflicting edits, and run the full test suite.

Use parallel agents when failures are independent—different root causes in different subsystems with no shared state. If fixing one failure might fix others, or understanding requires full system context, a single sequential investigation is more effective.

A good agent prompt is focused on one problem domain, self-contained with pasted error messages and test names, explicit about constraints such as not changing production code, and specific about the expected output like a summary of root cause and changes.

Yes, conflicts occur when agents share state or edit the same files. Avoid this by assigning strictly independent domains, and after dispatch verify that agents did not modify overlapping code before integrating their changes.

Parallel dispatch is unsuitable for related failures, exploratory debugging where the problem is unknown, tasks requiring full system context, or work involving shared resources. In those cases agents interfere with each other or duplicate investigation effort.