Parallel agents
Run agents side by side across workspaces, or delegate a scoped piece of work inside one.
Running agents in parallel starts with one decision: should each agent get its own branch, or should they share the one you are already on?
What are parallel agents in Proliferate
Proliferate has two ways to run more than one agent at once, and they answer different questions.
| Shape | What it is | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Parallel workspaces | Separate workspaces, each with its own checkout and branch. | The outputs are independent and can land separately. |
| Delegated sessions | A second session inside one workspace, spawned by the agent already working there. | The work is part of the task an agent is already on. |
Neither needs a second machine. Both run on the same runtime you already have.
What are parallel workspaces
Each workspace has its own checkout and branch on one shared runtime, so two agents never fight over a working directory. The branch or pull request is still the unit of integration: you review each diff before it merges, on its own schedule.
This is the default choice for independent features, separate bug fixes, one workspace per issue, and experiments you may discard.
What is a delegated session
A delegated session is a full Proliferate session that a parent agent spawns for a focused piece of its own task. It runs in the same workspace: same checkout, same git state, no second environment to provision.
Reach for one when the sub-task is scoped and worth its own context — tracing a subsystem before changing it, running a review pass over a diff, or splitting a large task into pieces that do not need to share a transcript. Skip it when one direct conversation would be simpler.
Delegated sessions have their own rules about roles, limits, and how they surface in the parent. Those are in Subagents.
Best practices for using parallel agents
Work that parallelizes well:
- Independent bugs, each in its own workspace.
- Tests in one workspace while another implements the feature.
- Two approaches to the same problem, compared side by side before you pick one.
- Reviewing one diff while a second workspace continues follow-up work.
Work that does not:
- Several agents editing the same files, which only moves the merge conflict later.
- Broad refactors without a plan someone has read.
- Database migrations without explicit sequencing.
- Release or infrastructure work with no human approval step.
Worktrees isolate branch and workflow state. They are not a security boundary.