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-4-5
    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.

Tool Interface

The transfer_task tool takes three parameters:

Parameter Type Required Description
agent string ✓ Name of the sub-agent to delegate to. Must be listed under the caller’s sub_agents.
task string ✓ Clear, concise description of the task the sub-agent should achieve.
expected_output string ✓ Description of the result/format the caller expects back.

The call blocks until the sub-agent returns its result, which becomes the tool’s response. For non-blocking parallel delegation, use background_agents instead.

💡 See also

For parallel task delegation, see Background Agents. For multi-agent patterns, see Multi-Agent.

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