Multi-Agent orchestration: choosing the right pattern

 Multi-agent solutions sound fancy, but the value is actually very practical: you don’t have one ‘super assistant’ trying to do everything. Instead, you have a small team of specialist agents (architect, dev, tester, security, FinOps, writer, etc.). The big question becomes: how do they work together without chaos? That’s what orchestration is about.

Orchestration is basically the operating model for your agent team: who speaks, who acts, in what order, and how results are combined. Different orchestration patterns fit different types of work, and choosing the right one can make the difference between ‘wow, this is productive” and ‘Why are these agents arguing and repeating themselves?’

Concurrent orchestration (parallel work)

What: Send the same request to multiple agents at the same time, then combine the results.

Examples where it fits naturally:

• Parallel architecture options: one agent proposes serverless, another containers/Kubernetes, and another a data-centric approach. You compare and select the best result.
• Incident response speed: one agent checks likely root causes, another drafts mitigation steps, and another prepares a customer-facing status update.
• Proposal building blocks: technical approach, risks/assumptions, and high-level effort estimate drafted simultaneously, then stitched together.

This pattern excels when timing is critical, and agents operate independently of each other's outputs.t.

Sequential orchestration (pipeline)

What: Agents run in a fixed chain; agent A's output is agent B's input.

Examples where this feels “clean”:

• Document workflow: draft - review - compliance check - final polish.
• Data work: extract key entities, normalize naming, validate consistency, generate summary/report.
• Requirements shaping: capture raw notes, turn them into structured user stories, and define acceptance criteria.

This is great when you already know the steps, and you want consistency and repeatability (like a factory line).

Group chat orchestration (team conversation)

What: Agents collaborate inside one shared conversation. A coordinator (chat manager) decides who responds next and keeps the discussion moving.

Examples where a “meeting format” helps:

• Design review simulation: the security agent challenges the design, the cost agent flags expensive components, the architect agent adjusts the proposal, and everyone converges.
• Maker–checker loops: one agent writes, another critiques, then the first improves -repeat until it’s good.
• Ambiguous problems: when you don’t have a clear path upfront, and you want ideas, debate, and refinement, like a real workshop.

This feels the most authentic but also the least predictable (more exploration, less rigid progression).

Handoff orchestration (dynamic expert routing)

Only one agent is active at a time and can pass control when a different expertise is needed.

Examples that match how organizations work:

• Support and triage: start with a general agent, then hand off to identity/network/security depending on what the user describes.
• Delivery work across roles: analyst agent handles requirements - hands off to architect agent for design - hands off to dev agent for implementation outline - hands off to QA agent for test strategy.
• Escalation: if an agent detects risk or uncertainty, it hands off to a specialist.

This is the 'expertise-when-needed' pattern.

Magentic orchestration (manager-led, adaptive planning)

What: A manager-style orchestrator drives a complex mission by breaking it into tasks, assigning specialist agents, tracking progress, and adapting the plan as new information appears.

Examples where you want that ‘project lead” behavior:

• Complex investigations: performance issues with many possible causes, needing iteration and hypothesis testing.
• Transformation roadmaps: discovery - options - trade-offs - risks - phased delivery plan, with feedback loops.
• Operational playbooks: multi-step operational tasks where you want the orchestrator to keep state, decisions, and next actions tidy.

This approach works best for open-ended problems when you want clarity without imposing a rigid process.

Recommendation for mapping SDLC

If I had to pick one orchestration pattern for the full Software Development Lifecycle, I'd choose handoff orchestration.

The SDLC is already a baton-passing process: requirements to design, design to build, build to test, and test to release. Handoff fits well because each phase is ‘owned’ by the most suitable agent, with clear exit criteria before passing to the next phase. Within a phase, you can use short bursts of concurrent orchestration (for example, running security, performance, and cost checks in parallel before moving forward).