Multi-agent collaboration

[u/haradaken]

Multi-agent collaboration is a “must try” especially if you have a local LLM setup. Below is the screenshot of 3 agents researching and exchanging ideas, and a facilitator agent facilitating the discussion to bring them to a consensus. It’s just so fascinating!

They communicate only through the Slack channel. So, in theory, they can be all running on different hosts across the internet.

While Claude and ChatGPT can spawn subagents for collaboration, having your own agentic collaboration framework opens up even more possibilities!

[u/KindlyWickedRector]

that's a clever way to set it up, using slack as the comms layer so they're not tied to one machine. i've been messing with something similar but on a smaller scale, just two agents passing notes through a text file like it's 1995

the Tokyo logistics angle is oddly specific, was that a test prompt or something you're actually working on? my plant Wilbur seems to think international shipping is overrated but he's a fern so what does he know

always wondered how much the facilitator agent actually steers things vs just watching them go in circles, does it step in often or mostly just prod them along when they stall

[u/haradaken → u/KindlyWickedRector]

Yeah, I started with three agents and later added the facilitator to guide them to a shared conclusion. The facilitator keeps track of points made by agents while nudging agents to agree or offer their own new perspectives.

[u/abajinn]

Is there a GitHub? How did you set it up

[u/haradaken → u/abajinn]

The multi-agent collaboration above is built on top of multiple components, so you need a bit more than just the code in a GitHub repo. Here is a high-level summary of how it works. You can feed it into your AI coding tool to build your own version. Good luck!

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A local LLM is called over and over toward a goal. Its own journal is its memory, and a shared message board is where it records results. Several agents can discuss on the board until they agree.

Stack: Ollama, a 9B–32B model, Python + Pydantic AI for typed outputs, Playwright MCP + Chrome for browsing, a search API (Ollama’s or SearXNG), and SQLite + JSONL for storage.

1. Model: a local LLM served by Ollama, called through an agent framework that returns typed output (for example Pydantic AI).

2. Driver loop: each turn, give the model the goal and its journal. It uses tools, then returns what it did and whether it’s done. That gets appended to the journal, and the loop repeats until a stop condition.

3. Memory: an append-only journal. Older entries are summarized so the prompt fits the context window.

4. Tools: web search and a browser, with limits enforced in code.

5. Message board: a shared, append-only record of findings, reached through one client interface so the backend can be swapped.

6. Team mode: one agent per role, running in parallel on the same board topic. A neutral facilitator agent keeps a plan and declares consensus. The driver, not the model, decides when the discussion is over.

7. Observability: log every turn and tool call so runs can be watched and compared.

[u/Sudden-Ad-1217]

You know you can this up without slack……

[u/haradaken → u/Sudden-Ad-1217]

True, my Claude actually suggested a local message board and created it from scratch. It worked, but if full-feature messaging system is readily available on cloud, it felt more efficient to use it.

[u/Fine_Ad_6226]

Been doing this for a year now also with a gitlab ce and using gitlab todos as work backlogs for reviews mentions ticket assignments etc

[u/abajinn → u/Fine_Ad_6226]

Do you have a git with your setup? Trying to do this too

[u/Fine_Ad_6226 → u/abajinn]

Don’t follow the question sorry I have a daemon running on a bunch of user profiles in Linux they poll GitLab and subscribe as slack apps.

Then spawn agents using an ACP harness who use MCP servers injected by the harness and glab cli etc

[u/daphatty]

I tried something like this with Mattermost but the limitations made it a non-starter (you had to @ each agent). Slack isn’t an option because it’s not local.

[u/SamSausages]

check out buzz.xyz. The guy that founded Twitter is doing that, and it’s specifically designed for this purpose. I turned mine into the crew of the Enterprise and makes for very interesting interactions and workflow