v5.6.0: Parallel Multi-Agent Coding with One Command — aios work¶
Problem¶
Single coding agents work serially: plan, edit, review, repeat. Every step waits for the same process, so a task with three independent parts takes three times as long as one part. Parallel multi-agent orchestration existed in AIOS (aios orchestrate), but it was opt-in, environment-gated, and required several flags — so most daily work still ran on one agent.
Quick Answer¶
aios work is one command that turns a task description into a concurrent multi-agent dispatch. It plans the work, splits it into independent items, runs planner, implementer, reviewer, and security-reviewer jobs in parallel (default concurrency 3), and merges results through a safety gate — all with a single CLI call. Live execution is on by default; --dry-run previews the plan, --serial forces safe sequential execution. It wraps the existing orchestration engine, so no new moving parts: the same evidence, ownership, and merge-gate guards apply.
Action Steps¶
- Upgrade AIOS to v5.6.0 (
aios update). - Run any task with one command:
aios work --task "Ship the release checklist"
- Preview before you commit to live dispatch:
aios work --task "Ship the release checklist" --dry-run --json
- Force serial execution for coupled work:
aios work --task "Refactor the auth module" --serial
- Tune concurrency and client:
aios work --task "Review auth, update tests, write docs" --client codex-cli --concurrency 4
How the dispatch works¶
- Automatic decomposition. The task title and
--contexthints are split into work items with ownership hints (docs/,scripts/tests/,mcp-server/src/). - DAG execution. Plan and implement phases run sequentially; review and security-review run in parallel; a merge gate validates handoffs, file ownership, and read-only review rules before anything is merged.
- Bounded parallelism.
aios workdefaults to 3 concurrent subagents (--concurrency Nto change,--serialto drop to 1). - Safety is not bypassed. Preflight readiness, capability manifests, owned path prefixes, file policy, and the merge gate all still apply. Live execution with unknown capability surfaces is refused unless you accept with
--force— exactly like the existingaios team/aios orchestrate --execute livepath. - Per-phase model routing. Planner, implementer, reviewer, and security-reviewer jobs resolve their own model through the model router by default.
Examples¶
# Default: live concurrent dispatch (concurrency 3, merge-gate closed)
aios work --task "Refactor mcp-server and add tests"
# Zero-cost preview (no model client is spawned)
aios work --task "Ship the release checklist" --dry-run --json
# Multi-item decomposition hints (semicolon / newline separated)
aios work --task "Prepare the release" --context "update changelog; refresh docs; bump version"
# Session-aware resume of a prior dispatch
aios work --task "Ship the release checklist" --session codex-cli-20260811T... --retry-blocked
Why not just use aios team or aios orchestrate?¶
They still exist and are unchanged. aios work is the same engine with the daily-driver defaults: live on by default, one command, no environment variables to remember. aios team remains the status/history/observability view; aios orchestrate remains the fully explicit control surface.
FAQ¶
Does aios work spawn real model clients?¶
Yes — live mode runs real one-shot subagents (codex, claude, gemini, or opencode per --client / AIOS_SUBAGENT_CLIENT). Use --dry-run for a zero-cost preview, or set AIOS_SUBAGENT_SIMULATE=1 to exercise the pipeline without calling a model.
Is parallel dispatch safe for my workspace?¶
The same guards as aios team apply: preflight readiness, capability manifest check, owned-path file policy, and a merge gate that blocks overlapping file ownership across parallel outputs. Coupled work can always be forced back to serial with --serial.
Does it replace the rex workflow command selection?¶
No. aios work is the parallel dispatch lane; the rex workflow (one current Command at a time) still owns staged provider selection. They are orthogonal.
Which clients are supported?¶
codex-cli, claude, gemini, and opencode — the same client set as the subagent runtime. Default is codex-cli.
I want speed but bounded cost. What should I use?¶
aios work --task "..." --concurrency 2 bounds live parallelism, --dry-run previews the DAG and work items first, and aios learn-eval turns prior dispatch evidence into recommendations for the next run.