This is a scoped research dossier, not a completed systematic review or an independently tested result. It identifies methods, questions and source trails for future reporting.
Coordination topologies
Sequential, parallel and supervisor-led designs behave differently. For each, identify who owns state, which agent may invoke tools and what counts as a successful handoff.
Peer agents are another input source
A collaborating agent can pass misleading or manipulated output. Treat inter-agent messages as data unless explicitly validated by the surrounding system.
Measure marginal benefit
Compare a multi-agent team against a simpler single-agent baseline, including cost, latency, intervention and failure rates.
What would count as evidence?
Test adversarial handoffs and baseline performance with equal task budgets.
Documents to examine
- OpenAI Agents SDK — Agents and Handoffs
- OWASP — Excessive Agency
These are starting points, not claims that every document has been independently reproduced.
Read our cited field note →Edition 1.0 · 09 October 2026
Initial research brief published. No earlier revisions or submitted public corrections are claimed.
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