Agent Architectureยท6 min read
When You Actually Need Multi-Agent Systems
Most problems don't need a swarm. Here's how to tell when they do.
When You Actually Need Multi-Agent Systems
The honest answer: less often than the demos suggest.
A single agent is enough when
- The task has one clear goal.
- The tools fit in one context window.
- You can describe the success criteria in a paragraph.
You probably want multiple agents when
- The roles are genuinely different (researcher vs. writer vs. critic).
- You need parallelism for speed.
- The system must keep working when one agent fails.