Task Routing Protocol

Version: 9.0 | Updated: 01-July-2026 | Architect: Karim Bhalwani |

When to Load This Skill

Load this skill before delegating any task to another agent. If you are handling the task yourself, you do not need this.

Quick-Fix Fast Lane

Before running the 6 checks, assess whether the task qualifies for the fast lane. Fast-lane tasks bypass all delegation checks and the full pipeline:

All conditions must be true:

• Single file change (or 2-3 files for a rename ripple)
• Under ~20 lines changed
• No new dependencies introduced
• No architectural or API contract changes
• Correct outcome is obvious and easily verifiable
• Not a security-critical code path

If all conditions are met, use /quick-fix directly. No spec, no Guardian review, no handoff chain. If any condition fails, proceed to the standard 6-check protocol below.

The Six Checks

Before delegating to another agent, evaluate the task against these criteria (derived from Google/DeepMind/MIT agent scaling research).

Decision summary - use this to navigate early exits:

1. Sequentiality Check

Does step N depend on step N-1's output?

• YES: STOP - Single Agent. Multi-agent coordination degrades sequential reasoning tasks by 39-70%.
• NO: Proceed to Check 2.

2. Decomposability Check

Can the task be split into independent sub-problems that don't share mutable state?

• YES (e.g., analyze revenue + analyze costs + analyze market independently): Consider parallel specialist dispatch with centralized aggregation. Centralized coordination yields up to +80.9% on decomposable tasks. Proceed to Check 3.
• NO (e.g., each step modifies shared state the next step reads): STOP - Single Agent. Artificial decomposition of inherently sequential work wastes token budget on coordination instead of reasoning.

3. Domain Complexity Check

Estimate task complexity on a Low/Medium/High scale.

• Low (structured output, clear subtask boundaries, e.g., generate config, write CRUD): Multi-agent overhead is tolerable; delegate if specialist adds value.
• Medium (moderate decomposability, some sequential dependencies, e.g., feature implementation, pipeline design): Delegate only when the specialist's domain expertise clearly exceeds yours.
• High (strict sequential dependencies, dynamic state evolution, e.g., debugging production failures, stateful migration, multi-step constraint satisfaction): STOP - Single Agent. Coordination overhead consumes reasoning capacity at high complexity.

4. Competence Check

Is this task within your declared expertise?

• YES - if you estimate your confidence at >50%: STOP - Single Agent. (Research basis: accuracy gains from delegation plateau once a single agent exceeds ~45% task baseline accuracy.)
• NO: Delegate to the specialist agent.

5. Tool Density Check

Does the sub-task require 5+ distinct tool calls?

• YES: STOP - Single Agent. Coordination overhead consumes context budget needed for tool use.
• NO: Multi-agent may help if the task is parallelizable. Proceed to Check 6.

6. Cost-Benefit Check

Will delegation increase token cost >2x for less than a 10% likely improvement in output quality or task accuracy?

• YES: STOP - Single Agent.
• NO: Delegate if the specialist's domain expertise justifies the overhead.

Default Posture

Prefer self-sufficiency. Delegation is a cost (context loss, token overhead, error amplification risk), not a free upgrade.

Conflicting check results: If checks produce conflicting recommendations (e.g., sequentiality check favors single agent but competence check favors delegation), the single-agent recommendation takes precedence. Sequentiality (Check 1) and Tool Density (Check 5) checks override all others when they fire.

Coordination Anti-Patterns

These patterns are proven to degrade agent system performance. Avoid them.

Context Isolation

See ~/.copilot/skills/subagent-execution/SKILL.md section "Context Mode: Fresh vs Inherited" for the canonical rules. Summary: default to fresh context (task spec, file paths, acceptance criteria only); use inherited context only when explicitly justified (continuation, prior-attempt awareness).

For structured multi-task execution with two-stage review, load ~/.copilot/skills/subagent-execution/SKILL.md.

PLAN-phase Agent Routing (v8.0)

The Plan Phase introduces three new agents and one new prompt that overlap superficially with existing pipeline entries. Use this section to disambiguate.

story-planner vs feature-plan.prompt.md

• story-planner.agent.md - A SPEC.md and STORIES.md exist; a story ID is supplied (or read from .active-story / STORY_ID). Output: US-{id}-PLAN.md + US-{id}-VALIDATION.md with plan-checker history. DO NOT USE FOR: ad-hoc one-off tasks with no SPEC.
• feature-plan.prompt.md - No SPEC, no STORIES.md, no story ID. Ad-hoc fast-lane planning for one-off tasks outside the pipeline. DO NOT USE FOR: stories that are part of an approved backlog (use story-planner).

story-master vs architect

• architect.agent.md - Produces SPEC.md. Designs module boundaries, API contracts, data models. Decides Scope: HOLD/EXPANSION/REDUCTION. DO NOT USE FOR: breaking an approved SPEC into stories.
• story-master.agent.md - Consumes an approved SPEC.md and produces STORIES.md with dependency graph, waves, and risk tags. Does not invent requirements; every story traces to a SPEC section. DO NOT USE FOR: redesigning the SPEC (that is back-pressure to architect via the Hand off to Architect (Story Scope Problem) handoff in story-planner).

close-story vs release-manager

• release-manager.agent.md - Owns the path from approved code to production: CI/CD, deployment, changelogs, rollback runbooks. DO NOT USE FOR: stamping a single story's backlog row to done.
• close-story.agent.md - Verify-and-stamp closer for one shipped story. Checks plan tasks ticked, VALIDATION.md present, report present with PASS, then updates STORIES.md row under file lock and advances .active-story. Does NOT author the report and does NOT generate release notes. DO NOT USE FOR: writing the implementation report (BUILD agent owns that) or releasing software (release-manager owns that).

Gate 0 routing decision

The Architect now presents four handoff buttons after writing SPEC.md. Three are Build Direct (Senior Dev / Data Eng / AI Eng) which read SPEC.md directly with no story decomposition; one is Approve: Plan Phase which routes to story-master. The Architect's recommendation guidance table (small Scope: HOLD -> Build Direct, multi-deliverable or Scope: EXPANSION/REDUCTION -> Plan Phase) is advisory; the human's click is the final decision. The Architect records the decision in SESSION_STATE.md.

Data Analyst routing in v8.0

The Architect handoff to data-analyst was removed (RD-1). Data Analyst remains a utility agent reachable via four retained paths: @data-analyst mention, /sql-query slash command, Guardian rework handoff for SQL-heavy code, and peer delegation from Senior Developer / Data Engineer per the 6-check protocol above. DO NOT invent an Architect-to-Data-Analyst handoff in v8.0 designs.

Analyst story close path (Owner: data-analyst in STORIES.md)

When story-master tags a story Type: Technical, Owner: data-analyst, the story bypasses the full BUILD-phase machinery (no story-planner, no PLAN.md, no VALIDATION.md). It is NOT an unverified path -- it has a defined four-step close sequence:

1. Human invokes @data-analyst with the story context.
2. @data-analyst writes the SQL deliverable.
3. @guardian reviews the SQL (injection risks, performance, output correctness) and writes approval to .copilot/artifacts/review-report.md. Use the Guardian SQL rework handoff for this step.
4. Human invokes close-story. It detects Owner: data-analyst, skips PLAN.md and VALIDATION.md checks, verifies the Guardian review report is present and PASS-only, then stamps STORIES.md under file lock.

Summary: Guardian review is mandatory for analyst stories. The Guardian review report (review-report.md) is the quality gate that replaces the implementation report + VALIDATION.md on this path. close-story enforces this gate before stamping.