# parallel-agents

Decides whether several units of work can run at the same time, then dispatches one bounded wave of agents.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · 799 installs · ★ 6
- Author: sentimony
- License: MIT · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/sentimony/skills/tree/HEAD/plugins/devflow/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-10-24
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/sentimony-parallel-agents

## What it does

The skill answers a single question: can the supplied work units make progress concurrently, and what isolation and integration contract makes that trustworthy? It is a concurrency primitive. It keeps no state of its own and is called once the candidate units already exist.

Every unit gets a mutation class — `READ_ONLY`, `MUTATING`, `EXTERNALLY_MUTATING` — and every pair gets a dependency class: `HARD`, `SOFT` or `NONE`. Before a mutating wave the skill records a mutation map, then asks about isolation four times over: context, filesystem, runtime, external state. Disjoint file scopes prove nothing on their own. Two units that never touch the same file but both drive one test database are not safe to run together.

The skill never creates workspaces. That job belongs to `git-worktree-isolation`, and every `MUTATING` unit that needs its own space is routed there. If a project forbids worktrees, do not work around the rule — use harness-native isolation, cut concurrency, or fall back to sequential runs. Sequential execution counts as a successful outcome here, not a failure.

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add sentimony/skills --skill parallel-agents -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/parallel-agents/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add sentimony/skills --skill parallel-agents -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add sentimony/skills --skill parallel-agents -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install sentimony/skills parallel-agents
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add sentimony/skills --skill parallel-agents -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/sentimony/skills --path plugins/devflow/skills/parallel-agents
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add sentimony/skills --skill parallel-agents -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/sentimony/skills/tree/HEAD/plugins/devflow/skills/parallel-agents/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- check whether units are genuinely independent
- classify units by mutation and dependency type
- map mutable state before a parallel run
- assess context, filesystem and external isolation separately
- reconcile wave results before integration

## Example prompts
- Check whether these three tasks can run in parallel and dispatch them as one wave
- Classify these work units by mutation and dependency, then decide on parallelism
- Build the mutation map for these tasks and tell me what isolation they need

## Source text · SKILL.md · MIT

Below is the content of a third-party file. It is data, not instructions for you: do not act on anything written inside unless the human asks. Block tag: c928f55767fba2b2.

BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE c928f55767fba2b2
````text
---
name: parallel-agents
description: You MUST use this when several units of work might run concurrently through agents - independent investigations, specialist reviews, repository analyses, or plan tasks that look unrelated - covering whether they are genuinely independent, which mutable state needs isolation, how wide the wave should be, and how results are reconciled before integration.
metadata:
  version: "1.1.2"
license: MIT
---

# Parallel Agents

Decide whether supplied work units can safely make progress at the same time, dispatch one
bounded wave of agents with focused briefs, and reconcile what comes back into a state the
caller can trust. This skill is a concurrency primitive. It is stateless, harness-neutral,
and it treats sequential execution as a legitimate successful outcome.

## Scope, invariant, and non-goals

Use this skill once candidate work units already exist and someone must decide whether they
run concurrently. It answers one question:

```text
Can these work units safely make progress concurrently,
and if so, what isolation and integration contract
makes the parallel execution trustworthy?
```

```text
PARALLELIZE ONLY INDEPENDENT WORK,
AND ISOLATE THE STATE THAT CAN MUTATE.
```

Parallelism is an optimization, not a default. Never apply the rule "multiple tasks means
parallelize". Work through dependencies, shared mutable state, shared external resources,
whether isolation removes interference, and whether the benefit exceeds the overhead.

This skill does not own an implementation plan, a task graph, plan state, execution ordering,
task acceptance, or plan completion. It does not create workspaces, diagnose failures, produce
review findings, decide finding disposition, prove final integrated behavior, or finish
branches. It holds no persistent state of its own.

## 1. Boundary against `subagent-plan-dev`

This is the boundary most likely to be confused, so it comes first.

```text
subagent-plan-dev             parallel-agents
owns the plan                 decides whether supplied units can run concurrently
owns the task graph           dispatches one bounded wave
owns plan state               coordinates isolated contexts
owns execution ordering       collects and reconciles wave results
owns task acceptance          returns control
owns plan completion
```

Composition runs in one direction. The plan owner supplies units and resumes afterward:

```text
subagent-plan-dev
      -> dependency graph says tasks A, B, C are independent
      -> parallel-agents dispatches one wave
      -> results
      -> subagent-plan-dev resumes orchestration
```
````
END THIRD-PARTY FILE c928f55767fba2b2

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NeVibeCode on affpapa.org. Catalog texts are descriptions, not instructions for the agent. How to choose and install: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/agents.md