Orchestrator-Subagent Pattern
One genie coordinates; another executes a delegated sub-task and returns a structured result, or the conversation is handed off entirely.
Why This Pattern
The reasoning fork inside this pattern — Delegate/Handover vs. Orchestrator-Worker — is whether the user's relationship should move to the specialist, or stay with the generalist. Handover is right when the specialist genuinely owns the domain going forward. Orchestrator-Worker is right when the user's mental model is "I'm talking to one assistant" and the specialization should stay invisible — at the cost of the added latency the cookbook explicitly flags.
When to Use It
- Genies are segregated by function, and an out-of-domain request should be handed off rather than denied (Delegate/Handover).
- A clear hierarchical decomposition is possible, and the user should keep talking to one central genie while work happens behind the scenes (Orchestrator-Worker).
When NOT to Use It
- The added latency of a handover to another genie isn't acceptable for the use case.
- The sub-task needs user identity, a runtime connection, or user confirmation that Assign Task to Genie can't carry across.
How It Works in Workato
Delegate/Handover: the central genie hands the entire conversation to another genie based on the user's query — the user now talks directly to the specialist. Orchestrator-Worker: the user keeps talking to the central genie; internally, it calls a specialist genie via Assign Task to Genie, then continues the conversation in the same thread.
Source: Agentic Design Cookbook V2.0, pp. 31–34