{
  "dataset": "glossary",
  "record": {
    "id": "multi-agent-system",
    "term": "Multi-Agent System",
    "category": "core",
    "short_def": "A system in which several autonomous agents interact — cooperating, delegating or competing — to solve a problem no single agent handles alone.",
    "long_def": "In a multi-agent system, work is decomposed across specialized agents (a planner, a researcher, a coder) that exchange messages and results. Coordination can be centralized (an orchestrator routes tasks) or peer-to-peer (agents negotiate directly), which is exactly what agent-to-agent protocols standardize.",
    "see_also": [
      "orchestration",
      "a2a",
      "delegation"
    ],
    "etymology_origin": {
      "value": null,
      "verify_status": "verify-against-primary-at-build",
      "source_hint": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system — established in distributed AI / agent research well before LLMs (1980s-90s)"
    },
    "related_to": [
      "orchestration",
      "a2a",
      "delegation",
      "ai-agent"
    ],
    "contrast_with": "Unlike a single agent looping alone, a multi-agent system splits a goal across agents that communicate, so each can specialize and run in parallel.",
    "example": "A research task might route a planner agent to decompose it, several worker agents to gather sources in parallel, and a writer agent to synthesize — coordinated over a protocol like A2A.",
    "source": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system",
    "status": "active",
    "why_it_matters": "Multi-agent systems are why agent-to-agent transport protocols exist; the agentic web is the substrate over which these agents discover and call one another.",
    "sameAs": [
      "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-agent_system"
    ],
    "bridge_entity": "a2a",
    "last_verified": "2026-07-06",
    "md_twin": "/glossary/multi-agent-system.md"
  }
}