Error Propagation in Multi-Agent Systems
CoreImplement error propagation strategies across multi-agent systems · Difficulty 3/5
0%
error-handlingmulti-agentresiliencepropagation
Explanation
Error handling in multi-agent systems requires careful design: errors should be handled at the lowest capable level and propagated with full context when escalation is needed.
Principles
- Handle locally when possible: Subagents should handle transient failures (retries, fallbacks) internally
- Propagate with context: When escalating, include failure type, what was attempted, partial results, and suggested alternatives
- Distinguish failure types: Access failures (timeout) vs. valid empty results (0 results found) require different handling
- Graceful degradation: Proceed with partial results rather than failing entirely, but annotate gaps
Anti-Patterns
- Silently swallowing errors (hides problems from coordinator)
- Returning empty results marked as success (prevents recovery)
- Terminating entire workflow on single failure (wasteful)
- Generic error statuses like "search unavailable" (hides valuable context)
- Retrying permanent failures like file corruption (pointless)
Structured Error Context
Return structured error information to enable intelligent coordinator recovery:
- Failure type (timeout, auth failure, rate limit, empty results)
- What was attempted (the query, parameters)
- Partial results (anything successfully retrieved)
- Alternative approaches (suggested fallback strategies)
Key Takeaways
- Handle errors at the lowest level capable of resolving them
- Always propagate errors with full context (failure type, attempts, partial results)
- Distinguish access failures (retry) from valid empty results (accept)
Related Concepts
Test Yourself
1 / 3Your web search agent encounters a timeout when querying one of its three data sources. The other two sources returned successfully. How should the agent handle this?