# Agent Coordination

Beyond doing the work, the agent has tools for *organising* the work - planning multi-step jobs, delegating to specialists, spawning subagents, and pausing to ask the user when something is genuinely ambiguous.

## Tools in the family

| Tool                                              | What it does                                                                                  |
| ------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `todo_write`                                      | Maintain a structured TODO list across a long task. Marked done as work progresses.           |
| `spawn_subagent`                                  | Spin up a fresh agent with its own context window for a self-contained subtask.               |
| `spawn_worker_thread`                             | Background work that doesn't need to block the main conversation.                             |
| `delegate`                                        | Hand a task to a specialist (e.g. an archetype with different prompts/tools/permissions).     |
| `archetype_delegation`                            | Route to a named archetype - coder, researcher, planner, etc.                                 |
| `skill_delegation`                                | Hand off to a [skill](/openhuman/features/integrations.md#skills) installed in the workspace. |
| `ask_clarification`                               | Pause and ask the user a precise question instead of guessing.                                |
| `plan_exit`                                       | Exit a planning phase and start executing.                                                    |
| `check_onboarding_status` / `complete_onboarding` | Gate behaviour on whether the user has finished onboarding.                                   |

## Why these are tools, not implicit behaviour

Long tasks fall apart when the agent tries to keep everything in one head. Splitting work via TODOs and subagents means:

* Each subagent gets a clean context - fewer tokens, fewer distractions.
* The main thread keeps a high-level view of progress.
* Failures in one branch don't poison the rest.

Asking for clarification is a tool too, on purpose: it makes "I should ask the user" a *visible* decision the agent can be steered toward, not an emergent behaviour.

## See also

* [Coder](/openhuman/features/native-tools/coder.md) - what a coder-archetype subagent typically uses.
* [Subconscious Loop](/openhuman/features/subconscious.md) - the always-on background agent thread.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://tinyhumans.gitbook.io/openhuman/features/native-tools/agent-coordination.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.