Protocol

Give parallel agents independent tests and merge boundaries

Parallel workers need an oracle and a border, not just separate chat windows.

When it fits

Several agents will edit one codebase or shared project concurrently.

When to avoid it

Architectural changes that cross every slice may require centralized design before parallel implementation.

Why it matters

Give each agent an isolated workspace, a defined ownership slice or merge contract and a test that can be run without asking another agent what happened. Integrate through versioned artifacts or commits, then run cross-slice tests after merge. Use shared state for coordination, not as permission for every worker to rewrite everything.

Steps

Each worker has an isolated change surface or explicit ownership.
Each slice has an independent acceptance test.
Results are committed or versioned before integration.
Cross-slice tests run after merge.
Conflicts route to a deliberate integration step.

An example

Three agents improve separate adapters in isolated branches, each with adapter tests; a fourth integration step runs the shared end-to-end suite.

Check your result

One worker's failure or rollback does not erase another worker's validated progress.

Keep this limit in mind

Architectural changes that cross every slice may require centralized design before parallel implementation.

Connected ideas

Evidence and sources

Supports

The same experiment used isolated workspaces, tests and an upstream repository to let agents work concurrently while reducing accidental overwrite and giving progress an external oracle.

Isolation does not remove semantic merge conflicts; overlapping architecture changes still need coordination.

Building a C compiler with a team of parallel Claudes · Parallel workspaces, pushes and test harness

All sources (1)

Building a C compiler with a team of parallel Claudes