Multi-agent architectures let you route different types of requests to specialized OpenClaw instances, improving performance, reducing costs, and enabling graceful degradation. This guide covers architecture patterns, routing configuration, session management, and production monitoring.
Why This Is Hard to Do Yourself
These are the common pitfalls that trip people up.
Architecture decisions
Centralized router vs distributed mesh? Sticky sessions vs stateless? Each has tradeoffs.
Intelligent routing logic
Routing by task type, user, load, or model requires custom logic that doesn't exist out of the box
Session state management
Multi-agent setups need shared or synchronized session state across instances
Monitoring complexity
Tracking health, performance, and costs across multiple agents requires centralized observability
Step-by-Step Guide
Plan your agent topology
Decide on the architecture.
# Common multi-agent patterns:
#
# 1. Specialized Agents (recommended for most teams):
# [Router] → [Code Agent] (Opus)
# → [Chat Agent] (Sonnet)
# → [Triage Agent] (Haiku)
#
# 2. Load-Balanced Identical Agents:
# [Load Balancer] → [Agent 1] → [Agent 2] → [Agent 3]
#
# 3. Hybrid (specialized + load balanced):
# [Router] → [Code Agents Pool] → [Agent 1a, 1b]
# → [Chat Agents Pool] → [Agent 2a, 2b]Deploy multiple OpenClaw instances
# Using Docker Compose for 3 specialized agents:
version: '3.8'
services:
router:
image: openclaw/gateway:latest
ports:
- "3000:3000"
volumes:
- ./config/router:/app/config
code-agent:
image: openclaw/openclaw:latest
volumes:
- ./config/code-agent:/app/config
environment:
- DEFAULT_MODEL=claude-3-opus
chat-agent:
image: openclaw/openclaw:latest
volumes:
- ./config/chat-agent:/app/config
environment:
- DEFAULT_MODEL=claude-3.5-sonnetConfigure the routing rules
# In config/router/routing.yaml:
routing:
rules:
- match:
keywords: ["code", "review", "debug", "implement", "refactor"]
target: code-agent
priority: 1
- match:
keywords: ["summarize", "explain", "chat", "help"]
target: chat-agent
priority: 1
- match:
default: true
target: chat-agent # Fallback
health_check:
interval: 30s
timeout: 5s
unhealthy_threshold: 3Set up session persistence
# In config/router/sessions.yaml:
sessions:
store: redis # or "memory" for single-router setups
redis:
host: redis
port: 6379
sticky: true # Route same user to same agent
ttl: 3600 # Session timeout in secondsWarning: Without session persistence, users may be routed to different agents mid-conversation, losing context. Always enable sticky sessions or shared session storage.
Add health monitoring
# In config/router/monitoring.yaml:
monitoring:
endpoints:
- name: code-agent
url: http://code-agent:3000/health
- name: chat-agent
url: http://chat-agent:3000/health
alerts:
- type: agent_down
channel: slack
- type: high_latency
threshold_ms: 5000
channel: emailTest the routing
# Test code routing:
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/chat \
-d '{"message": "Review this Python function for bugs"}'
# Should route to code-agent
# Test chat routing:
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/chat \
-d '{"message": "What is the weather like today?"}'
# Should route to chat-agent
# Check routing logs:
tail -f logs/router.logMulti-Agent Architecture Is Complex
Routing rules, session persistence, health checks, failover — getting multi-agent right requires production experience. Our enterprise experts design and deploy multi-agent architectures for teams of all sizes.
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