BlogsOct 3, 2026
A formation is how people and agents work together
The route says what happens next. A formation says how the people and agents doing the work are organized.
By Walid Negm
You can already add an agent. You can add twenty. Each one can draft, look something up, watch a queue, or hand a piece of work on. What you still cannot state, in a straightforward way, is how they are supposed to work together.
That gap is easy to miss, because the agents are visible and the arrangement is not. A fleet of Grok bots is a list of bots. It does not yet show who owns the outcome, when a case changes hands, or when several of them must agree before anything becomes official. Formalizing that is an old problem. Supervisors, handoffs, committees, markets, shared boards, and peers under written rules were coordination patterns long before anyone called them agents. Adding another bot does not answer the question. This is a reminder to ask it.
A manager should be able to describe how the team works without describing the flowchart. The route is the order of the work: receive the request, then review it, then fulfill it. A formation is one part of that route, organized in a particular way: who directs, who holds the case, who judges, who may take the work, who shares the board, who acts as a peer. The lead may be a person/agent. So may the specialist, the next owner, and the peer.
Choose the sentence that best describes how people and agents work together, then answer a few questions about that arrangement. The words are yours. The system stores the type. The sentence is the arrangement. A formation is one instance of it: this piece of work, with these people/agents, organized that way.
- A lead directs specialists
- People report to a manager
- The work changes “hands”
- A group decides together
- Work is put out for offers
- Everyone works from a shared board
- Peers coordinate by agreed rules
A sequence is not one of these. Step A, then Step B, then Step C is a route. So is a branch, a set of tasks that run together, or a join before the work continues. Any of those steps can contain one of the six arrangements above. The order does not decide the organization, and the organization does not decide the order. Twenty bots in a row are still a list, until one of these sentences is true of them.
Every formation starts the same way
| What you are naming | Question | What you enter |
|---|---|---|
| This piece of work | What do you call it? | A name, such as Emergency Care Assessment |
| Who takes part | Who is in it? | The people and agents involved |
| How reversible the result is | How hard is the result to undo? | Not sure yet, Reversible, Costly to undo, or Irreversible |
| Why it arrives here | Why does the previous work send it here? | Optional. Leave it blank if you are only describing the next step. |
Not sure yet is a real answer. Use it when you do not know. It leaves the question open. A guess about how hard the result is to undo is worse than leaving it open.
Why it arrives here is optional, and it is not what makes a handoff. Use it only when the work arrives because responsibility or a decision changed. If the reason is simply “the last step finished,” that belongs on the route, not here.
How does this work get done?
| Pattern | You are describing | The question that defines it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. A lead directs specialists | One lead coordinates the others | Who owns the outcome? |
| 2. People report to a manager | ||
| 3. The work changes “hands” | One piece of work moves from one owner to the next | When does ownership of the work pass on? |
| 4. A group decides together | Several participants judge the same thing | How does the group reach one decision? |
| 5. Work is put out for offers | Several participants can offer to take the work | How is one offer selected? |
| 6. Everyone works from a shared board | Participants work from the same changing state | Who can act on the shared state, and when? |
| 7. Peers coordinate by agreed rules | Equals work together under written rules, with no one in charge | What rules let them work together? |
These patterns describe how participants are organized around the work. They are not the route the work follows.
1. A lead directs specialists
Example: insurance claims review. A lead agent assigns the file. Specialist agents gather the documents, check the limits, and draft the recommendation. The lead accepts the result.
One lead sits at the center. The lead may be a person/agent. That lead directs the others and remains accountable for the result.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| Who owns the outcome? | The lead who directs the work and accepts the result when it is done. The same lead answers both. A later approval by someone else is a separate gate, not a second owner. |
| Who else is already in it? | The specialists. They are the other people and agents already named. They contribute work and report back. There is no second list. |
Use it when one lead remains responsible for the outcome while others perform parts of the work. Adding five specialist bots is not this pattern until one of them, or a person/agent, owns the outcome.
3. The work changes “hands”
Example: an activation bot holds the case until a technician accepts it.
One continuing case has one current owner. The defining event is that another participant accepts responsibility for the same case.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| What is the case? | The patient, ticket, activation, claim, request, or other thing that keeps its identity as it changes hands |
| Who may hold it? | The people or agents who may own the case. One of them holds it at a time, then it moves. |
| When may the current owner pass it? | What must be true before the case may be offered to another owner |
| What goes with the case? | The information, authority, history, and state the next owner needs |
| How does the next owner take it? | What counts as accepting ownership. That acceptance is the moment the transfer has happened. |
The participant who currently holds the case passes it to another participant. The move is complete when the next participant has actually taken ownership.
Use it when the work is one continuing case and remains unresolved until another participant accepts responsibility for it.
Do not use this simply because one bot finished and another started. Review, then Approve, then Fulfill is a route. The same case can travel that route and be finished when the last step finishes, even if nobody has accepted the case. This pattern is narrower. The case continues, and responsibility changes when the next owner accepts it.
4. A group decides together
Example: sales proposal sign-off. A pricing agent, a legal reviewer, and a sales lead each judge the same proposal. One rule turns those views into a decision.
Several participants independently consider the same thing, and their views are combined into one decision.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| Who gives a view? | The people or agents independently judging the same thing |
| How do those views become one decision? | Majority, unanimous agreement, quorum, scoring, or another decision rule |
| Who applies that rule? | One person/agent who formally applies it, or nobody, if the rule itself determines the result. The group settles once. A second person/agent applying the rule would be a second decision. |
| What are they looking at? | The proposal, exception packet, case, or other thing being judged |
| How long do they have? | Until quorum, five days, until everyone responds, or another limit |
| When is the decision final? | The point at which the result stands |
Use it when several participants must contribute judgment to the same decision. Three bots asked for an opinion are not a group decision until you have said how those opinions become one.
5. Work is put out for offers
Example: a repair job offered to qualified provider agents.
The work is made available to several possible takers, and a rule determines who receives it.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| What is being offered? | The repair job, open slot, task, or other work being made available |
| Who may offer? | Anyone allowed to offer to take the work |
| How is one offer chosen? | Lowest price, first qualified, best fit, highest score, or another selection rule |
| How long is it open? | Until a deadline, for one shift, or another defined period |
| Who makes the award? | The person/agent who applies the selection rule, or nobody, if the rule itself selects. The award happens once. |
| When is the award final? | The point at which the work has officially been given to someone |
Use it when several participants could perform the work and one of them must be chosen to do it.
6. Everyone works from a shared board
Example: supply shortage response. Inventory, purchasing, and a planning agent all read and update the same shortage list. Nobody assigns them a turn.
Participants coordinate by reading and changing a common state. Nobody routes them into a sequence.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| What do people/agents share? | The shortage list, case file, task board, shared record, or other common state |
| What can each person/agent do there? | See it, update it, claim something, or perform another permitted action |
| When may someone step in? | What must be true before a participant may act on the shared state. This is separate from what makes the result official. |
| When does the shared state become the result? | The point at which the state of the board means the work is complete |
Use it when participants coordinate by responding to the same changing state. A shared chat is not yet a shared board. The board is the state they are allowed to change, and the rule for when that state counts as done.
7. Peers coordinate by agreed rules
Example: a ward team, people and agents together, keeping one care plan current.
Equals work together, and no one person/agent sits at the center. This pattern is ready only when the rules that let the group coordinate are clear. Leave one blank and you have not described how the group works yet.
| Question | What you are saying |
|---|---|
| Who is allowed to act? | Which participants may take action. One peer has nobody to coordinate with. |
| What are they working on together? | The care plan, shared draft, case, or other common work |
| What are they allowed to do? | What participants may do to the shared work and with one another |
| What happens when they disagree? | How conflicts, competing actions, or incompatible choices are resolved |
| When is this work considered finished? | The point at which the group considers the work complete |
Use it when no participant directs the others, and the group still needs written rules to work together. A group decision, a shared board, and work put out for offers also have no person/agent at the center. This pattern is the one whose rules are written down for the equals themselves. A room of bots with no lead is not this pattern until those rules are filled in.
A formation is not a workflow
A workflow describes how work progresses
- Step A, then Step B, then Step C
- Branch if a condition is true
- Run several tasks at the same time
- Join the results before continuing
It answers: what happens next?
A formation is one instance of an arrangement
The six numbered sentences are the arrangements. A formation is one piece of work using one of them.
- Who owns the outcome?
- Who may hold the case?
- Who judges?
- Who competes for the work?
- Who may change the shared state?
- What rules let peers work together?
It answers: how are people and agents working together here?
A route can contain a formation of any of these arrangements.
- Receive request
- A lead directs specialists
- The work changes “hands”
- A group decides together
- Fulfill request
The order is the workflow.