Swarm
OpenAI Swarm
In one line
Swarm is OpenAI's lightweight, experimental multi-agent framework that boils coordination down to two ideas: handoffs between agents and small routines they each follow.
Going deeper
Swarm is the lightweight, explicitly 'experimental, educational' multi-agent library OpenAI released in late 2024. Where other frameworks reach for graphs or rich message protocols, Swarm leans on a single idea: when agent A is done, it hands off to agent B.
The codebase is small and has few dependencies, which makes it a good place to learn how multi-agent flow actually works and to prototype quickly. OpenAI was upfront that the project is closer to a reference implementation than a production-grade framework.
Pieces of Swarm's design have since been absorbed into the OpenAI Agents SDK alongside Assistants, in a more production-friendly form. The longer-lasting legacy is probably the handoff-first mental model rather than Swarm itself.
Related terms
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CrewAI is a multi-agent framework that lets you stand up role-based agents that work as a team, with role, goal and task defined declaratively.
AI AgentAutoGen
AutoGen is Microsoft Research's multi-agent framework, built around conversational agents that exchange messages and divide work between themselves.
AI AgentLangGraph
LangGraph is the graph-based agent workflow framework from the LangChain team — built so that branches, loops and human-in-the-loop steps are first-class.
AI AgentAgent Autonomy Level
Agent autonomy level describes how far an agent acts on its own without human intervention — usually in stages, much like the autonomous driving levels people are already familiar with.
AI AgentMulti-Agent System
A multi-agent system is several AI agents with different roles cooperating on the same task — used when one agent alone is not enough to solve the problem.
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