When one AI agent passes a task, a piece of context, or a decision to another agent. A good handoff includes everything the receiving agent needs to continue without asking follow-up questions. A bad handoff loses context, duplicates work, or drops the task entirely.
Why it matters
Most multi-agent failures happen at the handoff. The work inside each agent is usually fine. It is the space between agents that breaks.
Related terms
Agent Message Bus
A communication channel that lets agents send structured messages directly to each other without a human in the middle. Message...
Coordination Failure
When agents fail not because they are bad at their individual jobs, but because they cannot work together properly. Wrong hando...
Shared State
Information that multiple agents need access to, stored where one agent writes and others read. Files, databases, message buses...
Build with this on OTP
OTP encodes coordination intelligence so AI agent teams can run on it. If this term shows up in your team's playbook, it belongs in your OOS.
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