Team patterns

Four multi-agent designs with the configuration that builds each. Every hop is a handoff between agents; for the field reference see that page, and for what each hop carries see context policies.

1. Front desk to specialists

One triage agent answers, finds out what the caller needs and routes. Its prompt says what it does not answer, and each entry’s description names its desk without overlapping the others:

{
  "name": "Front desk",
  "channel": "voice",
  "prompt": "You are the front desk for Northwind. Find out what the caller needs in one or two questions and pass them to the right desk. Do not answer billing or technical questions yourself - the desks have the account and the tools.",
  "greeting": {"message": "Thanks for calling Northwind. What can I help you with?"},
  "handoffs": [
    {
      "name": "Billing",
      "agent_id": "b41c7a29-6f2b-4c7a-9c1e-1d2a8f0b41c7",
      "description": "invoices, refunds, payment questions, card details, anything about what the caller has been charged",
      "context": "summary",
      "message": "Let me put you through to billing."
    },
    {
      "name": "Technical support",
      "agent_id": "7d2e5a04-91c3-4f68-b0aa-2c53e7d19f80",
      "description": "broken devices, setup problems, error messages, anything that is not working",
      "context": "summary",
      "recent_turns": 3,
      "message": "One moment, connecting you to technical support."
    },
    {
      "name": "Renewals",
      "agent_id": "c8e07b16-4a25-4d90-b7e3-91f2a6d0c845",
      "description": "renewing, upgrading, downgrading or cancelling an existing plan",
      "context": "summary",
      "message": "Let me bring in the renewals desk."
    }
  ]
}

Each specialist’s prompt covers its own desk and does not repeat the routing policy. Give it either a short greeting that assumes the handover (“Billing here — I can see your account”) or no greeting plus a prompt line telling it not to re-introduce the company.

2. Returning to the front desk

A specialist that gets a question outside its desk hands back with an ordinary handoffs entry:

{
  "handoffs": [
    {
      "name": "Front desk",
      "agent_id": "3f9a1c72-58b4-4a1e-9f27-6d0c5b8e4a13",
      "description": "anything that is not a billing question, or a caller who has finished with billing and needs something else",
      "context": "summary",
      "recent_turns": 1,
      "summary_prompt": "One sentence for the front desk: what the caller now wants that billing cannot help with.",
      "message": "Let me take you back to the front desk."
    }
  ]
}

summary with a one-line summary_prompt and recent_turns: 1 gives the front desk the new request without the billing detour. The return edge is an edge like any other, so the channel, pipeline, avatar and expressive rules apply to it. A call allows 25 handoffs; if callers bounce between two desks, their descriptions overlap.

3. Routing on a lookup

Tier, entitlement and ownership are facts about the account, not judgements about what the caller said. Route on them with a tool whose operation tree looks the account up and, inside an if, runs a handoff operation. The agent carries that tool alongside its ordinary handoffs:

{
  "name": "Front desk",
  "channel": "voice",
  "prompt": "You are the front desk for Northwind. As soon as you know what the caller needs, call route_by_account with a one-sentence reason. If it hands the call on, you are done; if not, help them yourself.",
  "tools": [{ "tool_id": "9a4f0c31-2d67-4b58-a0e9-5c8137b2ef46" }],
  "handoffs": [
    {
      "name": "Billing",
      "agent_id": "b41c7a29-6f2b-4c7a-9c1e-1d2a8f0b41c7",
      "description": "invoices, refunds, payment questions and card details",
      "context": "summary"
    }
  ]
}

Tell the agent to call a tool that may hand over before it starts answering. To route before the agent speaks at all, put the lookup and handoff operation in its on_enter hook; keep the lookup fast, because the caller hears silence while it runs.

4. A cast assembled per call

Use agent_team when the cast genuinely differs per request: a marketplace where each seller has a generated agent, or a campaign that picks a closer per region from your data.

curl -X POST https://api.talqing.com/v1/calls/outbound \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TALQING_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "to": "+919812345670",
    "from_phone_number_id": "5c19b2a8-0f43-4a1d-9f60-3e7d2b4c8a91",
    "userdata": { "name": "Priya", "region": "west" },
    "agent_team": {
      "members": [
        { "name": "Opener", "agent_id": "3f9a1c72-58b4-4a1e-9f27-6d0c5b8e4a13" },
        { "name": "Closer", "agent_id": "c8e07b16-4a25-4d90-b7e3-91f2a6d0c845" }
      ]
    }
  }'

const call = await talqing.calls.outbound({
  outboundCallRequest: {
    to: "+919812345670",
    from_phone_number_id: "5c19b2a8-0f43-4a1d-9f60-3e7d2b4c8a91",
    userdata: { name: "Priya", region: "west" },
    agent_team: {
      members: [
        { name: "Opener", agent_id: "3f9a1c72-58b4-4a1e-9f27-6d0c5b8e4a13" },
        { name: "Closer", agent_id: "c8e07b16-4a25-4d90-b7e3-91f2a6d0c845" },
      ],
    },
  },
});

call = talqing.calls.outbound(
    to="+919812345670",
    from_phone_number_id="5c19b2a8-0f43-4a1d-9f60-3e7d2b4c8a91",
    userdata={"name": "Priya", "region": "west"},
    agent_team={
        "members": [
            {"name": "Opener", "agent_id": "3f9a1c72-58b4-4a1e-9f27-6d0c5b8e4a13"},
            {"name": "Closer", "agent_id": "c8e07b16-4a25-4d90-b7e3-91f2a6d0c845"},
        ]
    },
)

The opener reaches the closer through a handoffs entry named Closer with no agent_id. If the same two agents run on every call, store that edge with agent_id and dial one agent instead.

Constraints across a team

Expressive voices. Every target of an agent with tts.expressive on must use the same TTS provider and model with expressive: true. See expressive delivery.
Voice and language. Nothing else forces members to share a voice or language. A voice change sounds like a colleague picking up; if that is not intended, give every member the same tts block. A caller speaking Hindi to the front desk should not be answered in English by billing.
Latency and cost per hop. Each hop pauses while the target loads (the message covers it), plus the summary-writing pause under summary. The target then pays for whatever context crossed on every turn.
Recording. Recording cannot start mid-call. If the answering agent has recording off, nothing is recorded even after a handoff to an agent with it on; the call records a recording.unavailable event. Switching off mid-call works. See recording.

Reading a multi-agent call

Question	Where
Which agent said this line?	Each transcript item’s `agent_id` and `agent_version`.
Where were the handovers?	`agent_handoff` items in the transcript, reading “Handed off to Billing”.
What context crossed?	`agent.handoff` events from `GET /v1/calls/{session_id}`; see context policies.
Which agent answered?	The session (`GET /v1/conversations/{conversation_id}/sessions`). It names the answering agent and does not change on handoff.

See conversations and calls.

Multi-agent triage

The front desk pattern built end to end, with a number answering.

Context policies

Choosing what each hop carries.

Get started

Build

Guides

1. Front desk to specialists

2. Returning to the front desk

3. Routing on a lookup

4. A cast assembled per call

Constraints across a team

Reading a multi-agent call

Next

Multi-agent triage

Context policies

​1. Front desk to specialists

​2. Returning to the front desk

​3. Routing on a lookup

​4. A cast assembled per call

​Constraints across a team

​Reading a multi-agent call

​Next

Multi-agent triage

Context policies

1. Front desk to specialists

2. Returning to the front desk

3. Routing on a lookup

4. A cast assembled per call

Constraints across a team

Reading a multi-agent call

Next