Without ownership, replanning never stops
The single most common multi-agent failure in 2026 is missing ownership. When no agent holds final responsibility for closing out the task, A hands off to B, B to C, and C back to A, producing an A→B→C→A infinite replanning loop. Each agent decides it lacks the authority to declare the work done, so it only replans. The fix is to concentrate the authority to declare completion in a single orchestrator and to separate roles so that workers only return results. Increment a hop counter on every handoff, and once hops exceed 5, force a stop and route the case to a human-review branch.
Past four workers, context overflows
Once you exceed four workers, the accumulated output of each one overflows the orchestrator's context window. Do not concatenate the full transcript verbatim; instead compress each worker's result into a structured summary of goal, deliverable, and open items before passing it on. If overflow is still likely even after compression, safely truncate the oldest intermediate logs first and keep the originals in external storage under a key so traceability is preserved.
Cost multiplies by run count
In a test environment a workflow that costs $0.50 per run looks cheap. But at 100,000 runs per month it explodes to $50,000 per month. If a loop triples the hop count, cost triples with it. Enforce per-run token and hop ceilings in code and stop immediately when a ceiling is reached; that is what prevents the blowup.
A full guide: from planning to operations
In the planning phase, define success as numbers rather than sentences. For example, lock in targets of at least 95% workflow pass rate, handoff hops p95 at or below 3, zero loop violations, cost per run at or below $0.50, and response p95 latency at or below 8 seconds. Specify each worker's input and output schema and its exit conditions in advance, and make only the orchestrator authorized to declare final completion.
Classify failure patterns into three kinds. First, infinite replanning: stop once hops exceed the ceiling of 5 and route to the human-review branch. Second, context overflow: it appears past four workers, so respond with structured summaries and safe truncation, but stop if it still overflows after three compressions. Third, transient errors: retry up to three times with exponential backoff, and if failure persists, return partial results and escalate.
Specify each recovery branch's trigger as a threshold so the decision is automated. Whether the path is retry, human review, safe truncation, or stop should be decided by numbers such as hop count, token count, and retry count, not by a human's on-the-spot judgment.
For the operations checklist, standardize log fields. Record execution ID, trace ID, worker name, hop number, input and output token counts, cost per run, and exit reason on every hop. Mask PII such as email, phone, and address in logs and prompts before storage. Enforce per-run token, hop, and cost ceilings in code and stop immediately when any ceiling is reached.
Run the continuous-improvement loop weekly. Track pass rate, hop p95, cost per run, and the stop/escalation ratio on a dashboard, find the worker combinations where loops occur most, and tighten their exit conditions. Sample the top 10% of runs by cost to analyze root causes, and re-measure after changes to confirm the metrics recover to target.
Executive summary
Concentrate ownership in a single orchestrator and break infinite replanning with a hop ceiling of 5. Past four workers, prevent context overflow with structured summaries, and enforce per-run token, hop, and cost ceilings in code to cut off, in advance, the path where a $0.50 workflow explodes to $50,000 per month.