Rather than one agent handling an entire coding task alone, the newest coding tools increasingly split work across multiple specialized agents running in parallel.
An orchestrator agent breaks a larger task into pieces and assigns them to specialized subagents, one testing, one writing documentation, one reviewing code, running simultaneously rather than sequentially. The orchestrator combines their output into a coherent result.
Running specialized tasks in parallel is simply faster than one agent handling writing, testing, and documentation one after another. Each subagent can also be more narrowly focused, producing more reliable results on its specific piece than a single agent context-switching between very different work.
GitHub Copilot’s multi-agent mode is a direct, mainstream example, letting one request spawn parallel subagents for different aspects of a coding task rather than a single linear session.
Multiple agents working on interdependent parts need to stay coordinated, and conflicting changes between parallel subagents are a genuine failure mode. Review the combined output carefully, especially where different agents’ work intersects. See Terminal-Bench for coding-agent results.
