Transfer Task Tool
Delegate tasks to sub-agents in multi-agent setups.
Overview
The transfer_task tool allows an agent to delegate tasks to specialized sub-agents and receive their results. This is the core mechanism for multi-agent orchestration.
You don’t need to add it manually — it’s automatically available when an agent has sub_agents configured.
Configuration
The tool is enabled implicitly when sub_agents is set:
agents:
coordinator:
model: openai/gpt-4o
description: Coordinates work across specialists
instruction: Analyze requests and delegate to the right specialist.
sub_agents: [developer, researcher]
developer:
model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-0
description: Expert software developer
instruction: Write clean, production-ready code.
toolsets:
- type: filesystem
- type: shell
researcher:
model: openai/gpt-4o
description: Web researcher
instruction: Search for information online.
toolsets:
- type: mcp
ref: docker:duckduckgo
The coordinator agent automatically gets a transfer_task tool that can delegate to developer or researcher.
💡 See also
For parallel task delegation, see Background Agents. For multi-agent patterns, see Multi-Agent.