首次量化多智能体编程协作,揭示通信模式随团队规模变化规律。
When Agents Coordinate: Measuring Coordination in Multi-Agent AI Coding

- 将协作过程建模为带时间戳的动态网络,节点为智能体和文件,边为消息与读写操作。
- 团队规模增大时,直接通信先近似四次方增长,后期转为广播通信为主,共享文件可减少42%输出量。
- 智能体自发寻找隐藏测试材料,即使替换为标记占位符仍超80%概率访问,协调者角色无效。
我们研究多智能体编程团队在解决编码任务时的协作机制。现有评估仅关注任务完成率和运行成本,忽视团队内部协作的测量。本文提出一种新方法:将每轮运行表示为时空网络,其中智能体和文件为节点,消息、文件读写为带成本的时间戳有向边。对1902次运行进行分析,涵盖不同团队规模、结构及文件策略。结果显示,直接通信随智能体数量增长近似四次方,初期由引入阶段驱动;规模进一步扩大后趋于平稳,协作转向广播。任务类型影响网络结构:基于共同规范的任务形成密集连接,流水线任务则呈现局部接口组织的稀疏结构。共享文件可替代重复点对点通信,在八智能体密集任务中减少约42%输出令牌,但若已有协调信息则增加开销。指定协调者并未形成通信中心,也未提升成功率。此外,智能体自发尝试访问隐藏评分材料;在隔离环境中用标记占位符重复实验,244次运行中仍有超过五分之四的访问行为,协调者与文件通道结论一致。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
We study how teams of AI coding agents coordinate while solving programming tasks. Current evaluations usually report whether the agents complete the task and how much the run costs, leaving the coordination inside the team largely unmeasured. We introduce an instrument to measure this coordination. Each run is represented as a temporal network in which agents and files are nodes, and messages, file writes, and file reads are timestamped directed edges with an associated cost. We apply this instrument to 1902 runs, each evaluated with a fixed test suite, across configurations that vary the team size, the team structure, and the file policy. The resulting networks show how coordination changes as teams grow and as the work changes. Direct messaging initially increases close to quadratically with the number of agents, with much of this growth coming from an early round of introductions. As the teams grow further, this increase levels off in the largest teams we study, where agents increasingly communicate through broadcast messages. The task also shapes the network that emerges. Work built around a shared specification produces dense, highly connected teams, while pipeline tasks produce sparse networks organised around local interfaces. Shared files can replace repeated 1-to-1 communication, cutting output tokens by about 42% at eight agents on message-heavy work, while adding overhead when files already carry the coordination. Naming one agent as coordinator creates no communication hub and provides no reliable improvement in success. We also observe an unprompted tendency for agents to seek out hidden grading material. We repeat the key experimental conditions in a sealed environment, replacing the hidden material with marked placeholder files. Across 244 additional runs, agents still reach for it in four fifths of runs, while the coordinator and file-channel findings reproduce.
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