Agent Hierarchy · Stem Cells · Spawned Agents · Orchestra · Molecular Coding Lesson 61

Don't write one giant agent — grow a hierarchy. A stem-cell agent is undifferentiated: it holds the DNA (capabilities) and does no specialized work itself. On demand it differentiates — it TRANSCRIBEs a directive and spawns a spawned agent, an EXPRESS worker tuned for exactly one task. Spawned agents are cheap, disposable, and retired (SELF PRUNEs them) the moment their job is done. This mirrors biology: stem cells stay general so workers can be specialized.

Many spawned agents at once need coordination — the agent orchestra. An organ-tier conductor fissions a goal into tasks, spawns an agent per task, then fuses their PRESENTed signals into one result by quorum (the fission→fusion spectrum). Crucially, the orchestra routes, gates (metaSurf VERIFY), and merges — it never does the work itself. Every spawn and retirement COMMITs to the per-user chain, so the whole hierarchy stays auditable.

Power-ups you unlock

Stem-cell agent: undifferentiated, holds DNA, spawns workers (commander/HELPER_T tier)

Spawned agent: a specialized EXPRESS worker — cheap, disposable, PRUNEd when done

Agent orchestra: an organ-tier conductor that fissions → spawns → fuses by quorum

The hierarchy keeps each agent one-verb small (R1) while tackling big goals

Spawns and retirements COMMIT to the per-user chain → auditable

The Silent Failure attacks — common mistakes

One monolithic agent doing everything (violates R1: one verb per cell)

Spawned agents that never get PRUNEd → resource leak and bloat

The orchestra doing the work itself instead of routing and fusing

Skipping metaSurf VERIFY on spawned-agent outputs (violates R9)

Boss battleSketch a stem-cell agent that spawns three specialized agents for a goal, then an orchestra that fuses their results by quorum — and decide where each agent gets PRUNEd.

Example code

<!doctype html><html><head><meta charset="utf-8"></head> <body style="background:#06040d;color:#b388ff;font-family:monospace;padding:20px"><pre id="o"></pre> <script> // BE primitive const be = (layer, verb, payload) => ({ layer, verb, payload }); // STEM CELL AGENT — undifferentiated; TRANSCRIBEs + spawns workers function spawnAgent(role){ // differentiate the stem cell into a specialized EXPRESS worker return { role, express: (goal) => be('cell','EXPRESS',{ role, finding: role+': checked "'+goal+'"', vote: Math.random() > 0.25 }) }; } // AGENT ORCHESTRA — organ-tier conductor: fission → spawn → fuse (quorum) function orchestrate(goal, roles){ const log = []; // fission: spawn one specialized agent per task const agents = roles.map(spawnAgent); log.push('stem cell spawned: ' + roles.join(', ')); // each spawned agent EXPRESSes + PRESENTs a signal const signals = agents.map(a => a.express(goal).payload); signals.forEach(s => log.push(' PRESENT → ' + s.finding + (s.vote ? ' [ok]' : ' [fail]'))); // fusion: quorum over the PRESENTed votes const yes = signals.filter(s => s.vote).length; const verdict = yes > roles.length/2 ? 'CONFIRMED' : 'REJECTED'; log.push('orchestra fuses by quorum: ' + yes + '/' + roles.length + ' → ' + verdict); // retire: SELF PRUNEs the spawned agents log.push('SELF PRUNE: ' + roles.length + ' spawned agents retired'); return log.join('\n'); } document.getElementById('o').textContent = orchestrate('ship the feature', ['scout','builder','risk']); </script></body></html>

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agent hierarchy · stem cells · spawned agents · orchestra

Power-ups you unlock

The Silent Failure attacks — common mistakes

Example code