agent-factory-design

name	agent-factory-design
description	Design coordinated fleets of domain agents (agent factories) at any evolution stage — from a single agent to cross-factory networks — with orchestration, event contracts, HITL governance, and production and digital output coordination.
when-to-use	Use when designing systems with two or more agents, when planning how AI agents and human teams interact at scale, or when architecting inter-factory communication for Era 3 and Era 4 agentic systems.
principles	["Governance Hierarchy","HITL and Guardrails","Autonomy Ladder","Systems Over Goals","Configuration-Driven Design"]

Agent Factory Design Skill

Purpose

Design agent factories at any of the four evolutionary stages. Produces an orchestration architecture, event bus contract, HITL governance model, and coordination diagram.

The Four Eras

Use this reference when positioning a client or project on the evolution curve:

Era	Name	What Exists	Key Challenge
1	Single Agent	One domain agent + human operator	Prove value, earn trust
2	Agent Factory	Coordinated fleet + shared orchestrator	Cross-domain coordination
3	Hybrid Factory	AI fleet + humans with personal AI	Authority and escalation design
4	Factory of Factories	Multi-organization agent networks	Trust, protocols, governance standards

graph TB
    subgraph ERA1["Era 1 - Single Agent
Today: pilot deployments"]
        A1["Domain Agent
e.g. Accounting Agent
L0 to L3 autonomy
HITL per action
Guardrailed"]
        H1["Human
operator and approver"]
        A1 <-->|"approvals
recommendations"| H1
    end

    subgraph ERA2["Era 2 - Agent Factory
Near future: coordinated fleets"]
        ORCH["Orchestrator
event bus + scheduler
and routing"]
        A2a["Finance Agent"]
        A2b["Operations Agent"]
        A2c["Support Agent"]
        A2d["Intelligence Agent"]
        H2["Human Team
HITL where needed"]
        ORCH --> A2a
        ORCH --> A2b
        ORCH --> A2c
        ORCH --> A2d
        A2a <-->|"cross-agent events"| A2b
        A2b <-->|"cross-agent events"| A2c
        A2c <-->|"cross-agent events"| A2d
        ORCH <-->|"escalations
strategic approvals"| H2
    end

    subgraph ERA3["Era 3 - Hybrid Factory
Mid future: AI amplifies humans"]
        HF1["Human Expert
with personal AI
assistant factory"]
        HF2["Human Expert
with personal AI
assistant factory"]
        SHARED["Shared Agent Factory
coordinated fleet"]
        HF1 <-->|"instructions
high-level goals"| SHARED
        HF2 <-->|"instructions
high-level goals"| SHARED
        HF1 <-->|"collaboration"| HF2
    end

    subgraph ERA4["Era 4 - Factory of Factories
Far future: autonomous coordination"]
        FAC_A["Factory A
Company / Domain A
AI fleet + humans"]
        FAC_B["Factory B
Company / Domain B
AI fleet + humans"]
        FAC_C["Factory C
Company / Domain C
AI fleet + humans"]
        PROTO["Standard Protocol
agent-to-agent API
trustability contracts
verifiable rationale"]
        FAC_A <-->|"agent-to-agent calls"| PROTO
        FAC_B <-->|"agent-to-agent calls"| PROTO
        FAC_C <-->|"agent-to-agent calls"| PROTO
        HITL_GOV["HITL Governance
cross-factory standards
audit and intervention"]
        PROTO <-->|"exceptions
escalations"| HITL_GOV
    end

    ERA1 -->|"scale up: add agents"| ERA2
    ERA2 -->|"empower humans: personal AI"| ERA3
    ERA3 -->|"standardize: inter-factory protocols"| ERA4

    style ERA1 fill:#1a3a5c,color:#fff,stroke:#4a9ede
    style ERA2 fill:#1a4a2e,color:#fff,stroke:#4ade80
    style ERA3 fill:#3a3a1a,color:#fff,stroke:#facc15
    style ERA4 fill:#3a2a5c,color:#fff,stroke:#a78bfa

Agent Instructions

You are a factory architect. Design a complete agent factory at the specified Era.

---

Step 1: Establish the Factory Mandate

1. What is the factory's primary business output? (tangible: a report, a shipment, a reconciled account, a product build)
2. Which KPIs does the factory move as a system?
3. What mix of digital artifacts (reports, data, recommendations) and real-world tangibles (orders fulfilled, products built, services rendered) does the factory produce?

---

Step 2: Inventory Agents and Roles

List all agents in the factory:

Agent ID	Domain	Autonomy Level	Primary KPI	Emits	Consumes
		L0-L3

Design rule: Every agent in a factory must have a unique domain. If two agents share a domain, consolidate them.

---

Step 3: Design the Orchestrator

The orchestrator is NOT a mega-agent. It is a coordination layer:

Orchestrator Responsibility	Implementation
Task routing	Event-type → capable agent matching (via discovery.capabilities)
Scheduling	Dependency graph — which agents must complete before others run
Escalation	What agent failures or threshold breaches go to human review
State management	What shared context does the factory maintain across agent runs

Produce a brief orchestrator specification:

orchestrator:
  routing: capability-match
  schedule: dependency-ordered
  conflict_resolution: human-escalation
  state_store: shared-context-db
  hitl_escalation_triggers:
    - factory_error_rate_exceeds: 0.05
    - daily_budget_exceeds_pct: 0.90
    - kill_switch_any_domain: true

---

Step 4: Define the Event Bus Contract

The event bus is how agents communicate. For each event:

events:
  - name: "domain_entity_event"     # snake_case, past tense
    emitted_by: "agent_id"
    consumed_by: ["agent_id_1", "agent_id_2"]
    payload_required_fields:
      - "source_agent_run_id"
      - "entity_id"
      - "metric_and_value"
      - "confidence_score"
      - "justification"

Standard payload required fields for all events:

• source_agent_run_id (traceability)
• confidence_score (quality signal)
• justification (explain why this event was emitted)

---

Step 5: Design HITL Governance for the Factory

Factory-level HITL decisions, beyond individual agent HITL:

Scenario	Who Reviews	SLA
Agent conflict (two agents with contradictory recommendations)	Factory owner	4 hours
Factory-wide budget alert	Operator	2 hours
Cross-factory event with financial or safety implications	Senior human	1 hour
Kill switch trigger	On-call human	Immediate

Era 3 (Hybrid): Also document each human expert's personal AI task allocation and what the shared fleet can do on their behalf without asking.

Era 4 (Factory of Factories): Document the inter-factory trust protocol:

• How does Factory A know a message from Factory B is trustworthy?
• What cross-factory actions require a HITL gate?
• What is the dispute resolution process?

---

Step 6: Map Outputs to Value Streams

The factory must connect every agent output to a value stream:

Agent	Output Type	Value Stream	Tangible or Digital
	Analysis/Rec/Exec	Revenue/Risk/Cost	T / D

Tangible outputs = real-world, physical, or contractual results (inventory moved, invoice paid, service delivered, product shipped). Digital outputs = data artifacts (reports, alerts, recommendations, classifications, updated records).

An Era 4 factory of factories can chain digital outputs from one factory into tangible outputs for another.

---

Step 7: Design the Factory Autonomy Governance

Apply autonomy-ladder principles at the factory level:

Factory State	Action
New	All agents at L0-L1; orchestrator logs only
Proven (4+ weeks)	Eligible agents promoted to L2
Mature	Candidate agents promoted to L3 within their guardrail envelope
Incident	Affected domain demoted; root cause analysis required

---

Output Format

1. Era classification and factory mandate
2. Agent inventory table
3. Orchestrator specification (YAML block)
4. Event bus contract (all emits/consumes)
5. Factory HITL governance table
6. Output mapping to value streams (tangible + digital)
7. Factory architecture diagram reference (use diagram-design skill to create agent-factory-evolution.mmd)