Delegation
- Isolated Sub-Agents
- Parallel Work
- Multi-Agent Board (Kanban)
- Background Sessions
- Multi-Step Pipelines
- Automatic Result Feedback
13. Delegation — When One Agent Isn’t Enough, Call in Reinforcements
This is the most technically complex area in the entire handbook, because Hermes provides two completely different multi-agent coordination mechanisms that are easily mistaken for one: delegate_task (subagents) and Kanban (the durable work board). Understanding exactly when to use which is the key to the whole chapter 13.
Two mechanisms, two philosophies
delegate_task (Subagent) | Kanban | |
|---|---|---|
| Nature | A function call | A work queue |
| Storage | In process memory, gone when the session closes | Durable in ~/.hermes/kanban.db, survives restarts |
| Scope | Within the same process | Across profiles, across servers |
| Fits | Short reasoning answers that don’t need a human | Work that crosses agent boundaries, needs human participation, or needs an audit trail |
| If the parent process is killed | The running child is cancelled and its result is lost | Continues to exist as a row in the database |
The most condensed sentence from the official documentation: delegate_task is a function call; Kanban is a work queue where every handoff is a row that any profile (or a human) can see and edit.
The six sub-sections follow strictly increasing complexity
- Isolated Sub-Agents (13.1) — the foundation: one fully isolated child agent.
- Parallel Work (13.2) — many child agents at once.
- Multi-Agent Board (Kanban) (13.3) — when subagents aren’t enough, you need a durable system.
- Background Sessions (13.4) — without blocking the parent session while waiting.
- Multi-Step Pipelines (13.5) — multi-stage chains of work with multiple roles.
- Automatic Result Feedback (13.6) — results come back to the right place, at the right time, without being lost.