Phase 16: Multi Agent And Swarms

Phase 16: Multi-Agent & Swarms

> Coordination, emergence, and collective intelligence.

Start this phase on GitHub

Prerequisites: Phase 14 Agent Engineering. Node.js 20+ and npx are
needed for the first TypeScript demo.

First lesson: Why Multi-Agent

Run this command from the repository root:

npx --yes tsx phases/16-multi-agent-and-swarms/01-why-multi-agent/code/single_vs_multi.ts

Keep the command, exit code, single-agent and multi-agent token and tool-call
totals, and one tradeoff that makes the added coordination worthwhile.

Next action: Change the task, compare the two approaches again, then
continue to FIPA-ACL Heritage and Speech Acts.

Browse the full Phase 16 lesson list or the
cross-phase roadmap.

Lessons in this phase

• Why Multi-Agent?
• Heritage of FIPA-ACL and Speech Acts
• Communication Protocols
• The Multi-Agent Primitive Model
• Supervisor / Orchestrator-Worker Pattern
• Hierarchical Architecture and Its Failure Mode
• Society of Mind and Multi-Agent Debate
• Role Specialization — Planner, Critic, Executor, Verifier
• Parallel / Swarm / Networked Architectures
• Group Chat and Speaker Selection
• Handoffs and Routines — Stateless Orchestration
• A2A — The Agent-to-Agent Protocol
• Shared Memory and Blackboard Patterns
• Consensus and Byzantine Fault Tolerance for Agents
• Voting, Self-Consistency, and Debate Topology
• Negotiation and Bargaining
• Generative Agents and Emergent Simulation
• Theory of Mind and Emergent Coordination
• Swarm Optimization for LLMs (PSO, ACO)
• MARL — MADDPG, QMIX, MAPPO
• Agent Economies, Token Incentives, Reputation
• Production Scaling — Queues, Checkpoints, Durability
• Failure Modes — MAST, Groupthink, Monoculture, Cascading Errors
• Evaluation and Coordination Benchmarks
• Case Studies and the 2026 State of the Art