Dispatching parallel agents skill for AI agents

dispatching-parallel-agents is a skill from the Summer skill library: a guide your AI agent reads when the task matches, so it builds the good version on the first try. Work 2+ independent tasks in parallel when they share no state and have no sequential dependencies.


Status	Stable
Domains	Agent workflow, Meta
Version	`1.0.3`
Engine version	`>=4.6`
Recommended set	No, installed by `--all` or by name

When your agent uses it

Facing 2+ independent tasks that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies
A plan has several independent workstreams that can run at the same time

Install

summer setup installs every skill for your agent. To add only this one:

npx -y summer-engine@latest skills install dispatching-parallel-agents --agent claude-code

Swap claude-code for your agent, such as codex or cursor. See Skills for every option.

The skill

Overview

You delegate tasks to specialized agents with isolated context. By precisely crafting their instructions and context, you ensure they stay focused and succeed at their task. They should never inherit your session’s context or history — you construct exactly what they need. This also preserves your own context for coordination work. When you have multiple unrelated failures (different test files, different subsystems, different bugs), investigating them sequentially wastes time. Each investigation is independent and can happen in parallel. Core principle: Dispatch one agent per independent problem domain. Let them work concurrently.

When to Use

digraph when_to_use {
    "Multiple failures?" [shape=diamond];
    "Are they independent?" [shape=diamond];
    "Single agent investigates all" [shape=box];
    "One agent per problem domain" [shape=box];
    "Can they work in parallel?" [shape=diamond];
    "Sequential agents" [shape=box];
    "Parallel dispatch" [shape=box];

    "Multiple failures?" -> "Are they independent?" [label="yes"];
    "Are they independent?" -> "Single agent investigates all" [label="no - related"];
    "Are they independent?" -> "Can they work in parallel?" [label="yes"];
    "Can they work in parallel?" -> "Parallel dispatch" [label="yes"];
    "Can they work in parallel?" -> "Sequential agents" [label="no - shared state"];
}

Use when:

3+ test files failing with different root causes
Multiple subsystems broken independently
Each problem can be understood without context from others
No shared state between investigations

Don’t use when:

Failures are related (fix one might fix others)
Need to understand full system state
Agents would interfere with each other

The Pattern

1. Identify Independent Domains

Group failures by what’s broken:

File A tests: Tool approval flow
File B tests: Batch completion behavior
File C tests: Abort functionality

Each domain is independent - fixing tool approval doesn’t affect abort tests.

2. Create Focused Agent Tasks

Each agent gets:

Specific scope: One test file or subsystem
Clear goal: Make these tests pass
Constraints: Don’t change other code
Expected output: Summary of what you found and fixed

3. Dispatch in Parallel

// In Claude Code / AI environment
Task("Fix agent-tool-abort.test.ts failures")
Task("Fix batch-completion-behavior.test.ts failures")
Task("Fix tool-approval-race-conditions.test.ts failures")
// All three run concurrently

4. Review and Integrate

When agents return:

Read each summary
Verify fixes don’t conflict
Run full test suite
Integrate all changes

Agent Prompt Structure

Good agent prompts are:

Focused - One clear problem domain
Self-contained - All context needed to understand the problem
Specific about output - What should the agent return?

Fix the 3 failing tests in src/agents/agent-tool-abort.test.ts:

1. "should abort tool with partial output capture" - expects 'interrupted at' in message
2. "should handle mixed completed and aborted tools" - fast tool aborted instead of completed
3. "should properly track pendingToolCount" - expects 3 results but gets 0

These are timing/race condition issues. Your task:

1. Read the test file and understand what each test verifies
2. Identify root cause - timing issues or actual bugs?
3. Fix by:
   - Replacing arbitrary timeouts with event-based waiting
   - Fixing bugs in abort implementation if found
   - Adjusting test expectations if testing changed behavior

Do NOT just increase timeouts - find the real issue.

Return: Summary of what you found and what you fixed.

Common Mistakes

Too broad: “Fix all the tests” - agent gets lost Good: Specific: “Fix agent-tool-abort.test.ts” - focused scope No context: “Fix the race condition” - agent doesn’t know where Good: Context: Paste the error messages and test names No constraints: Agent might refactor everything Good: Constraints: “Do NOT change production code” or “Fix tests only” Vague output: “Fix it” - you don’t know what changed Good: Specific: “Return summary of root cause and changes”

When NOT to Use

Related failures: Fixing one might fix others - investigate together first Need full context: Understanding requires seeing entire system Exploratory debugging: You don’t know what’s broken yet Shared state: Agents would interfere (editing same files, using same resources)

Example

Scenario: 6 test failures across 3 files after major refactoring Failures:

agent-tool-abort.test.ts: 3 failures (timing issues)
batch-completion-behavior.test.ts: 2 failures (tools not executing)
tool-approval-race-conditions.test.ts: 1 failure (execution count = 0)

Decision: Independent domains - abort logic separate from batch completion separate from race conditions Dispatch:

Agent 1 → Fix agent-tool-abort.test.ts
Agent 2 → Fix batch-completion-behavior.test.ts
Agent 3 → Fix tool-approval-race-conditions.test.ts

Results:

Agent 1: Replaced timeouts with event-based waiting
Agent 2: Fixed event structure bug (threadId in wrong place)
Agent 3: Added wait for async tool execution to complete

Integration: All fixes independent, no conflicts, full suite green

Verification

After agents return:

Review each summary - Understand what changed
Check for conflicts - Did agents edit same code?
Run full suite - Verify all fixes work together
Spot check - Agents can make systematic errors

Source: library/skills/dispatching-parallel-agents/SKILL.md, rendered from summer-engine@4.3.0 on npm.

​When your agent uses it

​Install

​The skill

​Overview

​When to Use

​The Pattern

​1. Identify Independent Domains

​2. Create Focused Agent Tasks

​3. Dispatch in Parallel

​4. Review and Integrate

​Agent Prompt Structure

​Common Mistakes

​When NOT to Use

​Example

​Verification