Phase 1: Topologies & Roles · ~75 minutes · Python (stdlib · `threading` · `queue`)

Parallel / Swarm / Networked Architectures

Contrast with supervisor: no central decider.

Hiring signal: Can operate parallel / swarm / networked architectures in production

Introduction

Agents read a shared event bus, pick up work asynchronously, write results back. LangGraph explicitly supports "Swarm Architecture" for decentralized, dynamic environments. Matrix (arXiv:2511.21686) represents both control and data flow as serialized messages passed through distributed queues to eliminate the orchestrator bottleneck. The tradeoff is explicit: determinism and traceability for scalability. Swarm fits tasks with many independent sub-problems; it does not fit tasks that need a single coherent plan.

Type: Learn + Build Languages: Python (stdlib, threading, queue) Prerequisites: Phase 16 · 05 (Supervisor Pattern), Phase 16 · 04 (Primitive Model) Time: ~75 minutes

Objective

Learning objectives

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Key terms in this lesson

Agent