Creativity · Agent Protocol
Hierarchical Agent Pattern
Hierarchical agent orchestration is the pattern you reach for when one orchestrator isn't enough. A top-level agent plans the overall task and delegates to mid-level coordinators, each owning a sub-domain; those coordinators in turn delegate to leaf worker agents. The shape mirrors how engineering organisations scale — tech leads under managers under directors — and lets you keep each agent's prompt and tool surface narrow.
Protocol facts
- Sponsor
- open pattern
- Status
- stable
- Spec
- https://www.anthropic.com/research/building-effective-agents
- Interop with
- A2A, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, Claude subagents
Frequently asked questions
When does hierarchy help?
When the task has layers of planning — e.g., a product-launch assistant that must coordinate research, writing, and compliance, each of which has its own sub-tasks. One flat orchestrator would have too much context to manage.
What's the risk of going too deep?
Each hop adds latency and loses context. Most production systems keep the tree two or three levels deep. If you're at four, consider whether a flatter design with better tools would do.
How does hierarchy relate to A2A?
A2A is the wire protocol that lets any node in the hierarchy live in a different runtime or be operated by a different team — the hierarchy is the logical shape, A2A is the glue.
Sources
- Anthropic — Building Effective Agents — accessed 2026-04-20