---
title: "Agent orchestration | Glossary"
description: Agent orchestration is the assignment of work across humans and specialised agents so that handoffs, reviews, and state stay visible. A graph of model calls…
image: "https://lenvanderhof.com/photos/len-portrait-1.jpg"
---

Term

# Agent orchestration

Agent orchestration is the assignment of work across humans and specialised agents so that handoffs, reviews, and state stay visible. A graph of model calls is not orchestration. Orchestration is who is chartered, what packet travels, what must be reviewed, and who sees the board. Without those four, adding agents adds waiting. CHORUS is one implementation of that operating layer. If you cannot point at the owner, the packet, the gate, and the board, you have a demo.

## When to use it

Use it when more agents produced more waiting, not more finished work. If standups now narrate model runs instead of closed work, the missing layer is orchestration, not another model.

## Do not confuse with

Not a vendor workflow canvas or a screenshot of nodes. Orchestration here is organizational protocol from The Multi-Agent Organization.

## Essays on this site

- [The Multi-Agent Organization: introduction](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/the-multi-agent-organization-introduction/)
- [Why multi-agent systems fail](https://lenvanderhof.com/en/blog/why-multi-agent-systems-fail/)

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