Decentralized Swarm Handoff
Agents in a swarm decide handoffs to peers based on a shared protocol with no central coordinator; specifically about agent-initiated handoff protocols, not topology.
Problem
Without a named handoff protocol, handoffs are either centralized (router) or implicit (shared memory). Centralized handoff defeats the swarm topology's scaling. Implicit handoff makes the trace of 'who handed work to whom' impossible to reconstruct. Distinct from existing swarm/decentralized-agent-network by naming the handoff *protocol* explicitly.
Solution
Each agent in the swarm exposes a handoff endpoint (accept_handoff(task) → {accept, defer, decline, with_reason}). Handoff initiator addresses peers by capability tag, not by identity. Protocol includes acceptance, decline-with-reason, capacity back-pressure. The trace of handoffs is logged per-agent and reconstructable. Pair with swarm, decentralized-agent-network, handoff, conversation-handoff.
When to use
- Swarm/decentralized topology where handoffs are routine.
- Agents have distinguishable capability tags.
- Handoff trace reconstruction is needed for audit or debugging.
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