agent orchestration

Agent orchestration coordinates multiple specialized agents working on complex tasks. **Architecture**: Orchestrator agent routes tasks to specialists, manages state, handles inter-agent communication, aggregates results. **Orchestration patterns**: Sequential pipeline (A → B → C), parallel execution (fan-out/fan-in), hierarchical (manager-worker), dynamic routing based on task requirements. **Components**: Task queue, agent registry, communication protocol, state management, result aggregation. **Framework features**: LangGraph (stateful multi-agent), CrewAI (role-based teams), AutoGen (conversational agents), MetaGPT (software team simulation). **Communication strategies**: Shared memory/blackboard, message passing, hierarchical reporting. **Coordination challenges**: Deadlock prevention, failure handling, load balancing, context sharing. **Example**: Research orchestrator routes to search agent, analysis agent, writing agent, coordinates outputs. **Best practices**: Clear agent interfaces, minimal coupling, explicit handoffs, logging/observability, graceful degradation. **Scalability**: Horizontal agent scaling, async execution, caching common results. Essential for building production multi-agent systems.