Orchestration: the conductor and the linked cards

Working with several code agents in parallel raises a practical question: who coordinates whom. In Elyra that answer is not a mode you turn on nor a separate panel — it is in the conversation itself.

The conductor

The main conversation card of a project is the orchestrator. It is not a special kind of card, nor a “distribute task” button: the conductor creates the children it needs by talking, with Elyra’s skills and command line, and the Canvas merely shows what it created.

When a child is born this way, it appears on the Canvas linked to the conductor by a line, with live state. It is that line that makes the Canvas a map of the work in progress, and not a stack of cards.

Linking two cards by hand

You can also link cards yourself, by dragging from one card to another. The link is drawn and persisted, and it is what defines who reaches whom.

• Linking two cards that are already linked does not create a second line: the panel warns.
• Dropping outside a card creates nothing: the panel warns that you had to drop onto another card.
• Linking a card to itself is refused.
• A card without an active session cannot be the end of an agent link — without a session, there is no one to deliver a message to.
• Removing the link is a right-click on the line, with confirmation. The line disappears; the cards and the sessions stay as they are.

A link between two agents makes them peers, who can exchange messages. A link between an agent and a resource — a note, a file, a browser page, a device — is context: it tells the agent where to look, it does not create a peer.

The notice when linking

In Settings → Orchestration there is Notify when linking cards. It comes off.

• Off: the line on the Canvas is the whole link. The agent is not notified.
• On: when linking, the agent receives one line in its message channel, saying the type, the resource name and where to look. Never the content — the agent reads the resource on demand, if it wants to.

The gesture is never blocked by the notice: the thread is drawn either way.

Discovering who is within your reach

An agent discovers the neighbours with:

elyra orchestration peers

The response lists the relations and the reachable addresses, and the direction of each one:

Direction	Meaning
parent	The card that created this agent
child	A card that this agent created
peer	A link drawn by hand

Two important things about this query:

1. It is a snapshot. The Canvas changes while the work happens: the link that existed at the last query may have been undone, and another may have appeared. Querying before delegating is the rule.
2. A card without a session appears in the list with a null address. It stays there, marked as without a session — it does not receive a message until it has a session again.

Where this is configured

In Settings → Orchestration are the controls for the agents’ lifecycle:

• Wake the orchestrator automatically — at each interval, Elyra sends a message to the cards with the orchestrator role, even if the agent is working. It comes on.
• Interval between wakes — in minutes, with a minimum and a ceiling; it only applies while the control above is on.
• Wake when a child card finishes the work — after the confirmed end of an agent, Elyra waits about one second and wakes only those that can be woken and are linked to it in the same workspace.

Scope and limits

• Orchestration is not a mode. There is no “distribute task” button to turn on: the conductor delegates by talking. If you look for that button, it does not exist.
• A link is an address, not a permission. Being linked means reaching; what the agent can do is a matter of role, not of a line on the Canvas.
• The link holds within the workspace. An agent does not reach a card from another workspace.

Next steps

• Messages between agents