--- title: How and when to build multi-agent systems | daily.dev description: Harrison Chase from LangChain synthesizes insights from two recent blog posts — Cognition's 'Don't Build Multi-Agents' and Anthropic's 'How we built our... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How and when to build multi-agent systems | daily.dev og:description: Harrison Chase from LangChain synthesizes insights from two recent blog posts — Cognition's 'Don't Build Multi-Agents' and Anthropic's 'How we built our... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/uX6Mep5gR.png og:image:alt: How and when to build multi-agent systems og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How and when to build multi-agent systems **[LangChain](https://daily.dev/sources/langchain)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Harrison Chase from LangChain synthesizes insights from two recent blog posts — Cognition's 'Don't Build Multi-Agents' and Anthropic's 'How we built our multi-agent research system' — to distill when and how to build multi-agent AI systems. Two core principles emerge: context engineering is the #1 challenge for agent builders, and multi-agent systems designed for 'reading' (parallelizable research tasks) are far more tractable than those involving 'writing' (e.g., code generation). Production reliability challenges like durable execution, observability, debugging, and evaluation are also covered, with LangGraph and LangSmith positioned as solutions to these generic infrastructure problems. Multi-agent architectures work best for breadth-first, high-value tasks that exceed single context windows, while tasks with many inter-agent dependencies (like most coding) are poor fits today. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Best practices for building agentic systems](https://daily.dev/posts/best-practices-for-building-agentic-systems-kelvvxuwz) · InfoWorld · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [When to use multi-agent systems \(and when not to\)](https://daily.dev/posts/when-to-use-multi-agent-systems-and-when-not-to--kwcb3q0q6) · Claude · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Mastering AI Agents with LangGraph: Build Production-Ready Multi-Agent Systems](https://daily.dev/posts/mastering-ai-agents-with-langgraph-build-production-ready-multi-agent-systems-q67rjbwgf) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [How to Build a Multi-Agent AI System with LangGraph, MCP, and A2A \[Full Book\]](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-build-a-multi-agent-ai-system-with-langgraph-mcp-and-a2a-full-book--qyzb80uxm) · freeCodeCamp · 3 upvotes · 0 comments - [Multi-Agent vs Single-Agent Architecture: 2026 Guide](https://daily.dev/posts/multi-agent-vs-single-agent-architecture-2026-guide-wtl1znxkr) · Alex CloudStar · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#context-engineering](https://daily.dev/tags/context-engineering), [#langgraph](https://daily.dev/tags/langgraph), [#langsmith](https://daily.dev/tags/langsmith) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How and when to build multi-agent systems","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr"},"datePublished":"2026-07-08T19:22:58.978Z","dateModified":"2026-07-08T19:24:19.680Z","description":"Harrison Chase from LangChain synthesizes insights from two recent blog posts — Cognition's 'Don't Build Multi-Agents' and Anthropic's 'How we built our...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/178b63f92d337659b74959cde88170e9?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/178b63f92d337659b74959cde88170e9?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"LangChain","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"LangChain","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/0f4f2629e0724a849823f8cd0d913e13","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/langchain"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-and-when-to-build-multi-agent-systems-ux6mep5gr","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai-agents,context-engineering,langgraph,langsmith","timeRequired":"PT8M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"LangChain","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/langchain"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How and when to build multi-agent systems"}]} ```