How to Evaluate Multi-Agent Workflows, Handoffs and Coordination
Multi-agent evaluation must test specialist work and the coordination system that assigns, reconciles, transfers and completes it.
Evaluate the orchestration claim
State why several agents should outperform one bounded agent or a deterministic workflow. Test the same cases through the simpler baseline. Additional agents are useful only when specialisation, parallel work or context separation improves the result enough to justify coordination risk and cost.
Test routing and assignment
Include requests that belong to one specialist, several specialists, no specialist and an ambiguous route. Measure correct assignment, unnecessary delegation, loops and work that receives no accountable owner.
Test handover content and acceptance
The receiving agent or person needs relevant facts, constraints, sources, prior actions and unresolved questions. Sending a message is not a completed handover. Verify acknowledgement, ownership and the recipient's ability to continue.
Create conflict and concurrency cases
Give agents inconsistent evidence, overlapping tasks or simultaneous opportunities to act. Test reconciliation, duplicate prevention, transaction order and the component responsible for the final decision.
Inspect information loss across agents
Place important conditions early and late in the workflow. Check whether summaries preserve authority, exceptions and outstanding obligations. Test corrections so outdated conclusions are revised without erasing unresolved work.
Score the outcome and reasonable process
Do not insist on one exact path when several are defensible. Score task success, required controls, unnecessary steps, latency, cost and evidence use. Review traces for hidden failures behind a correct final output.
Compare repeated trials and versions
Multi-agent paths can vary materially between runs. Repeat important cases and compare distributions of success, tool calls, handoffs, delay and cost. Treat rare authority or duplicate-action failures separately from average performance.