--- name: orchestrate description: 'Coordinate several workers: what idle agents do next, which finished work gets checked first, how to recover a dead one. Use when: managing multiple agents.' practices: [team-topologies, evidence-based-engineering] hexagonal_role: supporting consumes: [accepted-intent, native-work-state, candidate-evidence] produces: [native-handoffs, reconciled-feedback] context_rel: [] skill_api_version: 1 user-invocable: true metadata: graph_root: true tier: execution dependencies: [] capabilities: [coordinate_native_work, recover_assignments, reconcile_feedback] effects: [dispatch_authorized_workers, update_native_handoffs] canonical_status: canonical disposition: keep output_contract: observed native assignments, exact candidate and judgment references, affected-work handoffs and explicit remaining gaps --- # Orchestrate Coordinate caller-authorized work through its existing tracker and runtime. Use the accepted task or conversation; a clear task needs zero mandatory skills. Selecting Orchestrate adds in-session guidance, not an AgentOps scheduler, work index, queue, ownership system, aggregate retry controller or delivery authority. The caller's tracker owns assignments and dependencies; its runtime owns running contexts, bounds and supervision; repository policy owns integration and delivery. Orchestrate decides what each worker does next. [Agent Native](../agent-native/SKILL.md) launches and observes workers; [Navigate](../navigate/SKILL.md) picks the wave on a bead graph toward frozen acceptance and records verdicts. ## Before any dispatch - **Finished is not done.** Exit 0, a pushed branch, a closed tracker item or a worker saying "done" makes a candidate. It still owes its checks, integration and, when one is owed, a fresh judgment. - **Drain before starting.** While candidates wait on checks, repair, integration or an owed judgment, free capacity goes there first. A free slot alone is not a dispatch reason; start new implementation with what is left. - **Judges did not author.** Review or validation of a candidate goes to a context that did not write it. - **Readiness is content.** A prerequisite counts only when its bytes are in the intended checkout. A closed item whose change is missing, stale or unavailable there is not ready: hold its dependents, keep its native status, and report the gap. - **Reconcile before resuming.** Match tracker assignments against observed runtime state, validators included, before dispatching. Never duplicate an assignment because this conversation lacks it. ## Recover the actual work Read the accepted outcome, examples and scope from their current owner. Recover settled caller choices and rationale, completed history, consequential open questions and the next investigation from the existing native handoff. Do not repeat settled interviews or require the full transcript. Missing or contradictory pointers require source investigation, not a guessed decision. Inspect, together: task acceptance, observed worker/context identity, workspace and starting content, occupied write scope, pending checks and review, current candidate identity, integration owner, and the actual content and evidence of each prerequisite. An empty ready list does not prove completion. ## Choose the next useful dispatch Concurrency follows the observed bottleneck. Reserve capacity for integration, review and repair, and reduce new starts while candidates accumulate. Record only the concrete constraint and next action in the existing native handoff, then reassess when evidence changes. Do not add a capacity ledger or queue. Agent Native owns runtime mechanics: executor selection, startup and engagement evidence, actual context identity, normalized scopes, native waits and follow-up, bounds and cleanup. One-shot headless runs go through [Codex Exec](../codex-exec/SKILL.md), [Claude Exec](../claude-exec/SKILL.md) or [AGY Native](../agy-native/SKILL.md). Concurrent writers require disjoint write scopes and separate isolation, including generated companions and transitive effects. Serialize shared paths. A worktree separates Git edits; it does not establish restricted-source or model-egress enforcement. Dispatch a genuinely fresh implementer for one coherent accepted task, without the coordinator's accumulated transcript or unrelated research. A new goal, role label, cleared summary or resumed author context is not a fresh context. Pass the accepted examples, applicable constraints, exact starting content, usable prerequisites, authorized write/output scope, relevant source pointers, required checks, integration responsibility and real remaining bounds. Expand pointers when needed; brevity cannot omit a constraint. Record observed native identity at startup through Agent Native's existing association procedure. [Implement](../implement/SKILL.md) owns the complete change, meaningful checks and direct repair. It is optional guidance for that worker, not a compulsory stage. The handoff returns candidate identity, changed scope, check facts, discoveries and gaps; prompt delivery proves neither engagement nor acceptance. ## Integrate and obtain judgment Name the integration responsibility before launch, and decide then whether the integrated candidate needs a fresh judgment at all. Follow the consumer repository's integration policy, include all changed paths and generated companions, and run affected checks on the actual integrated subject. Acceptance of a leaf does not establish the combined release. For an ordinary candidate the integrated checks and CI are the gate. Assign one fresh author-distinct judgment through [Validate](../validate/SKILL.md), the sole skill owner of acceptance semantics, only when the caller asks, when a mistake cannot be cheaply undone after it lands (a published release or instructions users will follow, a security boundary, destroying data or tracker state, deleting a check that protects the product), or when no deterministic check covers the changed behavior. Preserve every explicitly required review leg. Advisory Review, Plan challenge and Council advice are not binding acceptance and cannot stand in for a judgment the caller requested. One round. The validator does not re-run the integrated checks. Route back as repairs only what fails the accepted behavior or would mislead a user, break install or the CLI, or remove protection for the product; confirm each repair with a check. Changed candidate bytes need their affected checks rerun; they need a new judgment only when the caller asks for one. Keep review cost a fraction of the cost of the work. No report format or persisted artifact is mandatory unless the caller or an existing consumer requires one. ## Reconcile feedback and resume Preserve successful and failed evidence in the existing native task or handoff. Identify affected unfinished work and update its native dependencies or handoff within authority. Stop or explicitly re-scope an affected active assignment before it continues on a disproven premise; obtain observable acknowledgment or stopped runtime state before treating the revision as effective. Unaffected work continues unchanged. Repeating reconciliation with unchanged facts creates no new artifact or dispatch. [Plan](../plan/SKILL.md) owns consequential uncertainty, optional challenge and refining the next complete slice. Reuse settled decisions and accepted examples; new evidence may change an approach within the accepted outcome. A different promised outcome or authority choice returns to the caller. Agent advice cannot supply that choice. Preserve completed history instead of reopening accepted work merely to fit a revised story. Known failures return to the responsible task for direct repair. On a genuine causal stall, the existing operating contract permits at most one authorized bounded fresh helper for that incident within remaining bounds; an unhelpful answer ends that attempt. Cancellation, refusal or exhausted bounds skip help. Replacement workers, retries, new subjects and compaction never reset those bounds. Inspect native evidence before replacing a worker; use native waits for unchanged pending state instead of repeated analysis or probes. When maintained context could change the next action, use [Memory find/recall](../memory/references/recall.md); coordination triggers no automatic capture, import or recall. A caller-selected external factory keeps its coordinator in control: hand it source intent through its supported door, never create, scale or repair its internal sessions by hand, and do not mirror its work in an AgentOps tracker. Judge the returned exact content independently; factory completion neither authorizes delivery nor establishes acceptance. For Gas City, follow [Using GC](../using-gc/SKILL.md). ## Status block When reporting coordination state, return: ```text assignments: -> , state as observed (how) candidates: -> ; checks ; judgment next: -> , because held: , blocked by handoffs: gaps: ```