---
name: multi-agent-mux-delegate-job
description: "Delegate a unit of work to any autonomous agent (claude-code, hermes, agy, grok-build, codex, or a human) and observe it asynchronously over an MQTT event channel. Supported roles include orchestrator, worker, and reviewer."
version: 4.1.3
author: godopu
license: MIT
platforms: [linux, macos, windows]
environments: [terminal, herdr]
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [agent, herdr, multi-agent, delegate, mqtt, async, job]
    related_skills: [multi-agent-mux-create, multi-agent-mux-resume, multi-agent-mux-loop]
    prereq_skills: [multi-agent-mux-create]
---

# multi-agent-mux-delegate-job — Async Job Delegation over MQTT

Delegate a unit of work to any autonomous agent, then **observe** it asynchronously instead of blocking. Every job gets a unique ID and a registry record. The worker agent publishes lifecycle events (`started`, `permission_required`, `progress`, `completed`, `error`) to a per-job MQTT topic, and the delegator/orchestrator subscribes to verify the final state.

This skill allows any agent (`claude-code`, `hermes`, `agy`, `grok-build`, etc.) to play any role: **Orchestrator/Delegator**, **Worker/Implementer**, or **Reviewer**.

---

## Roles in Multi-Agent Mux

- **Orchestrator (Delegator)**: Initiates the job, coordinates other agents, handles loops and reviews, and commits final changes.
- **Worker (Implementer)**: Receives the brief file or task prompt, performs the implementation, and emits started/completed/error events.
- **Reviewer**: Evaluates git diffs or artifacts produced by the worker, and responds with a `completed` event containing `"PASS"` or feedback.

---

## Core Commands (CLI)

The `multi-agent-mux-delegate-job` bash wrapper handles job registration, subscriber management, agent session targeting, and validation hooks:

```bash
# 1) Submit a new job to a targeted agent session (e.g. herdr session name 'demo')
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job submit \
  --agent <claude-code|hermes-agent|agy-agent|grok-build|human> \
  --agent-session herdr:<session_name> \
  --prompt "Task description or instructions here" \
  --role <Worker|Planner|Reviewer> \
  --timeout 3600 --idle-timeout 120

# 2) Submit a job with a feedback loop (Worker-Reviewer Loop)
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job submit \
  --agent <worker_agent> --agent-session herdr:<worker_session> \
  --type loop --reviewer <reviewer_agent> --reviewer-session herdr:<reviewer_session> \
  --prompt "Task description"

# 3) Check job status and audit logs
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job status --job <JOB_ID>
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job logs   <JOB_ID>            # Chronological log of events
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job list                       # Summary of all registered jobs

# 4) Verify job artifacts with a validation script
multi-agent-mux-delegate-job verify --job <JOB_ID> --validate ./validate.sh
```

---

## Task Delegation Types

Supported job types include:
- `direct` (default): Single agent execution (direct tasking).
- `loop` (Worker-Reviewer Loop): Alternates worker execution and reviewer evaluation until reviewer approves (`PASS`) or iterations run out.
- `discuss` (Research & Discussion): Collaboration between two agents to reach a consensus (e.g., agreeing on a design or plan).

For detailed state machine diagrams and configurations, see [DELEGATION_TYPES.md](./DELEGATION_TYPES.md).

---

## The Event Protocol Contract

Every agent participating in the delegation contract must follow the same lifecycle publishing protocol using `publish_event.py`:

1. **On Start**: Publish `started` event.
   `python3 .agents/skills/multi-agent-mux-delegate-job/scripts/publish_event.py --job "$JOB_ID" --event started`
2. **On Tool/Permission Prompt**: Publish `permission_required` event.
   `python3 ... --job "$JOB_ID" --event permission_required --detail "<tool>:<reason>"`
3. **On Progress Update (Optional)**: Publish `progress` event.
   `python3 ... --job "$JOB_ID" --event progress --detail "<status_update>"`
4. **On Success**: Publish `completed` event.
   `python3 ... --job "$JOB_ID" --event completed --detail "<summary>"` (Reviewer should include `"PASS"` in the detail to approve).
5. **On Failure/Feedback**: Publish `error` event.
   `python3 ... --job "$JOB_ID" --event error --detail "<reason_or_feedback>"`

---

## Audit Logs

Job lifecycle execution events are persistently mirrored to an append-only log under `.mam/delegate_job_logs/<job_id>/` (containing `meta.json`, `events.ndjson`, and `status.json`). Use `multi-agent-mux-delegate-job logs <job_id>` to view the timeline.

---

## Best Practices and Pitfalls

- **Subscribe-Before-Publish**: The subscriber must be running before the agent starts publishing. The `submit` command handles this automatically by launching the subscriber in the background first.
- **Fresh job_id Propagation**: Make sure the worker agent receives the correct `JOB_ID` generated for the current run, rather than reusing stale IDs from previous sessions.
- **Brief delivery via file path**: For long or complex prompts, write the instructions to a file (e.g. `/tmp/task-brief.md`) and pass a short prompt pointing to the file path to prevent terminal buffer overflows.
- **Prompts injected into a live agent session MUST be English, ASCII-only, and short** — this is exactly what `--prompt`/the `instructions` string sent to `run_agent()` end up as. Any Korean (or other non-ASCII) content the task needs to convey must go in a markdown brief file (e.g. `.mam/jobs/<id>/brief.md`, written in Korean is fine) that the injected prompt merely tells the agent to read. Two independent bugs in `send_keys_safe`'s paste-verification (in `lib.sh`) made this matter in practice: (a) its marker was taken with a byte-based `tail -c 24`, which can slice a multi-byte UTF-8 (e.g. Korean) character in half; (b) the rendered pane soft-wraps long lines at the terminal width, which can split the marker across two visual lines. Both are now fixed at the source (character-safe truncation + newline-stripped matching before comparison), but keeping injected prompts short/English/file-referencing is still the cheapest way to avoid ever exercising this edge case at all — it's also simply what `submit`'s own default instruction template already does (see `Core Commands` above).
- **Batch Grouping**: Group non-overlapping tasks into batches to parallelize execution across multiple agent sessions, reducing overhead.
