prompt
FreeChoose the right coordination topology for multi-agent systems
FreeFree tier
About prompt
Multi-Agent Topology Selector is a prompt designed to systematically choose the optimal coordination topology for multi-agent systems. It evaluates task structure, communication cost, failure surface, and operational constraints to recommend a topology among single agent, parallel agents, sequential pipeline, hierarchy, or hybrid. The prompt enforces a structured output with sections such as Task Summary, Candidate Topologies, Recommended Topology, and Failure Controls, ensuring explicit consideration of coordination cost and avoiding unnecessary multi-agent complexity. It is part of the ai-boost/awesome-prompts collection on GitHub and is provided as an open-source prompt file.
Key Features
Evaluates task structure, communication cost, failure surface, and operational constraints
Recommends among five topologies: single agent, parallel, sequential pipeline, hierarchy, or hybrid
Structured output format with 8 required sections including failure controls and escalation points
Explicit cost-awareness: does not assume more agents or parallelism is better
Sources academic research: Agent Q-Mix, AdaptOrch, Orchestration of Multi-Agent Systems
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Provides a systematic, repeatable framework for topology selection
- Considers both performance (latency, tokens) and reliability (failure surface)
- Encourages minimalism: recommends single agent when sufficient
- Explicit about escalation and human review requirements
- Structured output ensures thorough documentation of reasoning
Cons
- Requires manual input of system details; no automated analysis
- Output is text-only; no integration with agent frameworks or code generation
- Recommendations depend on accurate self-assessment of constraints
- Limited to the five specified topologies; may not cover all emerging patterns
Best For
Designing multi-agent LLM systems for complex task decompositionChoosing between centralized vs. decentralized agent coordinationOptimizing token and latency budgets in agent-based workflowsEnforcing human review points in automated agent pipelinesEvaluating failure modes like deadlocks, stale state, or duplicate work
FAQ
What does the Multi-Agent Topology Selector evaluate?
It evaluates four areas: task structure (independent subtasks, sequential dependencies, need for central arbitration, iterative critique), communication cost (state movement, update frequency, messaging overhead), failure surface (duplicate work, stale state, deadlocks, missing ownership), and operational constraints (latency budget, token budget, reliability target, human review requirements).
What topologies can the selector recommend?
It can recommend single agent, parallel agents, sequential pipeline, hierarchy, or hybrid. It explicitly avoids assuming more agents or parallelism is better.
What is the required output format?
The prompt requires returning eight sections: Task Summary, Candidate Topologies, Recommended Topology, Why It Fits, Why the Other Topologies Lose, Communication Pattern, Failure Controls, and Escalation / Human Review Points.
Is this tool free to use?
Yes, it is an open-source prompt file hosted on GitHub under the ai-boost/awesome-prompts repository, and is free to use.