Agentic Workflow Pattern

Standard multi-agent pipeline for implementation tasks.

Architecture Principles

• Use run_in_background: true for all agents to keep main context minimal
• Use Task tool (never TaskOutput) to avoid receiving full agent transcripts
• Agents write outputs to .claude/cache/agents/<stage>/ for injection into subsequent agents
• Main conversation is pure orchestration, no heavy lifting, only coordination

Workflow Stages

1. Research Agent

Task(subagent_type="oracle", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Query NIA Oracle (via /nia-docs skill) to verify approach and gather best practices.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
""")

• Enforce NIA as the research layer
• Output: Research findings

2. Planning Agent

Task(subagent_type="plan-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
Use RP-CLI to analyze the target codebase section.
Generate implementation plan informed by research.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/plan-agent/<task>-plan.md
""")

• Receives: Research agent output as context
• Output: Implementation plan

3. Validation Agent

Task(subagent_type="validate-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/plan-agent/<task>-plan.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md
Review plan against research findings and best practices.

Output to: .claude/cache/agents/validate-agent/<task>-validated.md
""")

• Reviews plan against research
• Output: Validated plan with amendments

4. Implementation Agent

Task(subagent_type="agentica-agent", run_in_background=true, prompt="""
Read: .claude/cache/agents/validate-agent/<task>-validated.md
Read: .claude/cache/agents/oracle/<task>-research.md

TDD approach: Write failing tests FIRST, then implement.
Run tests to verify.