Multi-Agent Coordination Patterns: Five Approaches and When to Use Them
What shipped
Anthropic published a guide on April 10, 2026 covering five multi-agent coordination patterns and the use cases each one is best suited for.
Smarter Work
Before: builders picking coordination patterns for multi-agent systems were mostly guessing or copying examples. After: a documented framework from Anthropic maps five distinct patterns to specific use cases, giving teams a decision tree instead of a coin flip.
How a team used this
Marcus is a software architect at a logistics company building an agent fleet to handle shipment exception resolution. He's spent two sprint cycles debating internally whether agents should run in parallel, sequentially, or use a supervisor model. On April 10th, he pulls up Anthropic's coordination patterns guide. Within the hour, he's matched the company's exception-triage workflow to one of the five documented patterns, written up a one-pager for his VP, and unblocked the engineering team. Two sprint cycles of debate, resolved in a lunch break.