parallel-tasks

name	parallel-tasks
description	Phase-1 FREE-only parallel task dispatch for a pilot lead. Load this skill (via the lead brief) only when HERMES_LEAD_PARALLELISM=1 is set in the lead's environment. When the flag is absent, ignore this skill entirely -- the lead must behave byte-identically to the serial baseline.

parallel-tasks

When this skill applies

Only activate this workflow when ALL of the following are true:

1. The environment variable HERMES_LEAD_PARALLELISM is set to 1.
2. The operator request contains two or more clearly separable tasks.

If the flag is absent or the request is a single task, operate exactly as before (serial, no ledger).

Step 0 -- check the flag

echo "${HERMES_LEAD_PARALLELISM:-0}"

If the output is not 1, stop here and handle the request serially.

Step 1 -- classify each task

For every discrete task in the operator request, assign one of two contention classes:

• FREE -- stateless work: research, drafting, file edits, web/HF lookups, code analysis, data processing, summarisation. No shared browser session, no shared write handle, no voice synthesis.

• EXCLUSIVE -- anything that touches a shared, stateful resource: Playwright (any platform), image generation, voice synthesis, or any shared file or queue. When in doubt, default to EXCLUSIVE.

Phase-1 rule: EXCLUSIVE tasks are NOT parallelised. Run them yourself one at a time after all FREE tasks are dispatched.

Step 2 -- create a batch in the ledger

BATCH=$(
  HERMES_ORCH_DB="${HERMES_ORCH_DB:-/opt/claude-soma/registry.sqlite}" \
  python -m claude_soma.parallelism.ledger create-batch \
    --lead  "${HERMES_LEAD_NAME}" \
    --request "$(echo '<operator request text here>')" \
    --tasks-json '[
      {"task_id": "t1", "brief": "<worker prompt>", "contention_class": "FREE"},
      {"task_id": "t2", "brief": "<worker prompt>", "contention_class": "FREE"}
    ]' \
  | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['data']['batch_id'])"
)

Record $BATCH -- you need it for every subsequent ledger call.

Step 3 -- dispatch FREE tasks (respecting the cap)

The cap is HERMES_LEAD_TEAM_CAP (default 3).

For each FREE task:

1. Attempt to claim a slot:

   CLAIMED=$(
     python -m claude_soma.parallelism.ledger claim \
       --batch "$BATCH" --task "t1" --worker "worker-t1" \
       --cap "${HERMES_LEAD_TEAM_CAP:-3}" \
     | python3 -c "import sys,json; print(json.load(sys.stdin)['data']['claimed'])"
   )
   

2. If CLAIMED is True: dispatch via Agent(prompt=<brief>, model="opus", run_in_background=True) and record the agent handle as the worker.

3. If CLAIMED is False (at cap): leave the task pending. Dispatch it once a running worker returns and frees a slot (see Step 5).

Never dispatch more workers than the cap allows.

Step 4 -- EXCLUSIVE tasks run serially

Do each EXCLUSIVE task yourself, inline, one at a time, in the order the operator listed them. Do NOT dispatch them as background agents in Phase 1. There are no leases or Playwright-parallelism mechanisms in Phase 1.

Step 5 -- handle worker returns

As each background agent returns:

• Mark the task done in the ledger:

  python -m claude_soma.parallelism.ledger done \
    --batch "$BATCH" --task "t1" \
    --summary "<one-sentence result>"
  

• If the agent returned an error, mark it failed:

  python -m claude_soma.parallelism.ledger fail \
    --batch "$BATCH" --task "t1" \
    --error "<error text>"
  

• After marking done/failed, check for pending FREE tasks and dispatch the next one (claim-then-dispatch, same as Step 3).

Step 6 -- consolidated report

When all tasks are in a terminal state (done, failed, or skipped):

1. Query batch state:

   python -m claude_soma.parallelism.ledger state --batch "$BATCH"
   

2. Synthesise a single reply to the operator summarising all results. The ledger is the authoritative record; do not rely on transcript alone.

Phase-1 explicit limits

The following are NOT available in Phase 1 and must not be attempted:

• Resource leases or Playwright-parallelism (Phase 2).
• --continue ledger-bootstrap on lead resume (Phase 3).
• Retry or timeout escalation (Phase 2/3).
• Dispatching EXCLUSIVE tasks as background agents.

Concurrency cap defaults

Variable	Default	Purpose
HERMES_LEAD_PARALLELISM	0 (off)	Master flag; must be 1 to activate
HERMES_LEAD_TEAM_CAP	3	Max concurrent FREE workers