Hero Agent

Problem

Past a certain size the single agent stops behaving like one coherent assistant and starts behaving like a confused junior who has been handed every job in the company. The model picks the wrong tool when two tools overlap, follows the wrong section of the prompt because two sections contradict each other, and the smallest user request now pays for the full giant prompt on every call. Latency, cost, and quality all regress together, and debugging which prompt fragment caused which behaviour becomes archaeological work.

Solution

Don't. Once the prompt exceeds a few hundred lines or the tool count exceeds about a dozen, extract specialists. See routing, supervisor, multi-model-routing.

When to use

• Never use this; once the prompt grows past a few hundred lines or tool count exceeds about a dozen, extract specialists.
• Use routing, supervisor, or multi-model-routing to split capability across agents.
• Treat single-prompt sprawl as a smell, not a destination.