Who owns the work when agents hand it over?

A handoff should carry an obligation

In my Agent Office, research, execution and review can happen in different sessions. Each agent can produce a useful contribution while the overall task waits. The work record is what tells me who needs to move next.

This is familiar from running teams. Passing a document to a colleague is easy; making the next decision and its owner clear is the harder part. An agent handoff needs the same care, because its conversation may end long before the obligation does.

Separate access from responsibility

Multica holds the commitment and its current owner. The MCP portal supplies access to shared tools. Model routing chooses the reasoning capability. These are three different decisions, and changing one should leave the others clear.

The June 2025 MCP authorization specification describes access to protected servers through OAuth. That answers an access question. I still need a work record that says what was requested, who can carry it forward and when the owner should be involved.

A specialist may need broad context to understand a problem and a narrow set of actions to carry out the decision. Giving every agent the same tools is convenient, but makes it harder to tell which handoff changed the responsibility.

Keep the reviewer outside the action

For work that can change important state, I separate the analyst, executor and verifier. The analyst prepares the evidence. The executor proposes and applies an authorised action. The verifier inspects the result independently.

The separation costs time. It also gives the reviewer something concrete to inspect: the proposed change, its supporting evidence and the version that will be used. A second agent repeating the first agent’s reasoning would add conversation without adding much protection.

A refusal needs a way forward

A review can stop an incorrect action and still leave the task stranded. I want the reason and the next owner on the same work record. The owner may need to correct an input, choose another route or decide to stop.

This is where the operating model earns its cost. It keeps recovery attached to the original commitment, rather than creating a second conversation that everyone assumes somebody else is handling.

Use the smallest organisation that works

One agent is often enough for a short task with a clear owner and an easily checked result. I use more structure when work spans days, depends on several specialists or changes something expensive to repair.

The test is whether coordination reduces the attention I spend recovering lost work. A larger roster is a poor substitute for a clear next move.