CCARF Practice Question

Paper 5 · Question 8

D1 Agentic Architecture & Orchestration · Paper 5

[Scenario: Multi-agent Research System] A colleague proposes that the document analysis agent should send its results directly to the synthesis agent, bypassing the coordinator. What is the main advantage of keeping the coordinator as the central hub for all communication between subagents? What is the main advantage of keeping the coordinator as the central hub?

• A.The coordinator can observe all interactions, handle errors uniformly, and decide what information each subagent should receive.
• B.The coordinator batches multiple requests to subagents, reducing total API calls and overall latency.
• C.Routing through the coordinator enables automatic retry logic that direct inter-agent calls cannot support.
• D.Subagents use isolated memory, and direct communication would require complex serialization that only the coordinator can perform.

Show answer & explanations

Correct answer: A

A: The coordinator pattern provides centralized visibility into all interactions, uniform error handling across the system, and fine-grained control over what information each subagent receives—these are the primary advantages of a star-shaped communication topology.

B: The hub does not, by itself, batch calls or cut latency. Parallel calls still go through the coordinator.

C: Retry logic is not unique to a hub. Direct calls can retry. The hub exists for visibility and control.

D: Isolation does not require the coordinator to serialize memory. The gain is seeing every interaction and choosing what each subagent receives.

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