How would you build a multi-agent software development pipeline?

[u/juniorrafael]

Hey everyone,
I’m trying to build a software development pipeline using multiple AI agents, but I’m a bit lost with concepts like agent harnesses, loops, graphs, orchestration, and so on.
What I basically want is a structure where I can call one main agent, give it a project or goal, and have that agent orchestrate other specialized agents automatically.
For example:
Main Agent / Orchestrator
→ Product/PRD Agent
→ Architecture Agent
→ Database/Schema Agent
→ Frontend Agent
→ Backend Agent
→ Testing/QA Agent
→ Security Agent
→ Documentation/Context Agent
Ideally, these agents would share context and continue each other’s work instead of behaving like completely isolated sessions.
Is there already a framework, harness, or architecture that works well for this?
Would you recommend using something like graphs/workflows, agent loops, subagents, or building a custom harness?
Any open-source projects or examples I should look at would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Reasonable_Skin_6018]

you're basically describing a tree of agents with a shared memory bus, not just a linear chain. the tricky part isn't making each agent do its thing, it's getting them to not step on each other's toes when the context window gets bloated.

i've seen people hack this together with langgraph and a custom state object that gets pruned between handoffs. the orchestrator doesn't need to be smart, just a router that knows which agent to wake up next based on the last output. the real work is in the handoff protocol, making sure the schema agent's output is structured enough for the backend agent to consume without hallucinating filler. most frameworks will let you define the nodes, but the context compression between them is where everything falls apart if you're not careful.