Orchestration

Own the outcome through integration and verification. Apply this skill at the coordinating level; give workers their task contract, not this entire orchestration policy.

Choose the smallest useful arrangement

• Use a direct tool call or script for deterministic work. Keep short tasks and tightly coupled investigation, implementation, and checks in one context.
• Delegate when a worker can produce a verifiable result independently, absorb bulky reads, or provide a useful independent review. A large file count alone does not justify more agents.
• Group work by the context and state it needs: separate assets, subsystems, source collections, or hypotheses. Keep work sharing a mutable session or inseparable design decision together.
• Use ordinary subagents for bounded jobs managed by the lead; a workflow for substantial or repeatable fan-out, dependency routing, and structured aggregation; a team for sustained peer discussion and shared task coordination. Check what the host actually supports; ordinary dispatch can implement a small dependency graph.
• The lead handles the critical path, missing inputs, integration, and decisions. Work on an independent piece while workers run; do not duplicate their assigned investigation.

Match capability and effort to the job

Use available models and supported effort settings, respecting explicit user choices. Start with the least expensive configuration likely to meet the acceptance check including review and repair. Model capability, reasoning effort, and worker count are separate choices.