Task Coordination Strategies

Strategies for decomposing complex tasks into parallelizable units, designing dependency graphs, writing effective task descriptions, and monitoring workload across agent teams.

When to Use This Skill

• Breaking down a complex task for parallel execution
• Designing task dependency relationships (blockedBy/blocks)
• Writing task descriptions with clear acceptance criteria
• Monitoring and rebalancing workload across teammates
• Identifying the critical path in a multi-task workflow

Task Decomposition Strategies

By Layer

Split work by architectural layer:

• Frontend components
• Backend API endpoints
• Database migrations/models
• Test suites

Best for: Full-stack features, vertical slices

By Component

Split work by functional component:

• Authentication module
• User profile module
• Notification module

Best for: Microservices, modular architectures

By Concern

Split work by cross-cutting concern:

• Security review
• Performance review
• Architecture review

Best for: Code reviews, audits

By File Ownership

Split work by file/directory boundaries:

• src/components/, Implementer 1
• src/api/, Implementer 2
• src/utils/, Implementer 3

Best for: Parallel implementation, conflict avoidance

Dependency Graph Design

Principles

1. Minimize chain depth, Prefer wide, shallow graphs over deep chains
2. Identify the critical path, The longest chain determines minimum completion time
3. Use blockedBy sparingly, Only add dependencies that are truly required
4. Avoid circular dependencies, Task A blocks B blocks A is a deadlock

Patterns

Independent (Best parallelism):

Task A ─┐
Task B ─┼─→ Integration
Task C ─┘

Sequential (Necessary dependencies):

Task A → Task B → Task C

Diamond (Mixed):

        ┌→ Task B ─┐
Task A ─┤          ├→ Task D
        └→ Task C ─┘

Using blockedBy/blocks