# Orchestrator-Workers

> A pattern where a central model dynamically breaks work into subtasks and delegates them to worker models.

- Category: Agents & Autonomy
- Stage: Established
- Also called: Manager-worker workflow, Delegation workflow
- Canonical: https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/orchestrator-workers

## Plain English

One agent figures out the plan; other agents do the pieces.

## Example

A codebase migration agent identifies affected packages and assigns each package to a worker.

## Why it matters

This pattern handles tasks where the steps are not known ahead of time.

## Related

- [Supervisor Agent](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/supervisor-agent)
- [Parallelization](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/parallelization)
- [Agent Swarm](https://www.joelcsaji.com/ai-dictionary/agent-swarm)

## Sources

- [Anthropic: Building Effective Agents](https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents)