Reduce any multi-agent system to five roles: producer, consumer, coordinator, critic, judge

DigitalApplied·medium signal

A 2026 pattern-language synthesis argues every reliable multi-agent system decomposes into five archetype roles — producer, consumer, coordinator, critic, and judge — which gives a checklist for spotting missing accountability (e.g., no critic or no judge) in an orchestration. It contrasts manager-based patterns (plan discovered through collaboration) with sequential chains (order fixed at design time). Actionable: map each agent in your system to one of the five roles and add an explicit critic/judge before committing irreversible actions.