From Serial Hand-Off to Swarm
The pattern AOPM replaces — and the pattern it enables
Pre-MCP: Serialized Controller Pattern
Each task returns guidance → controller picks the next task → one task runs at a time
BPMN Ad-Hoc Sub-Process
Controller
rule / human / AI orchestrator
T1
done
T2
running
T3
idle
T4
idle
T5
idle
Execution Timeline
t₀
tₙ
T1
T2
T3
T4
T5
strict serialization — the controller is the only path
Costs
✕ Capabilities bleed up into the controller ✕ Controller must understand every domain it orchestrates ✕ Parallelism is faked or absent
AOPM with MCP: Swarming Tasks
Tasks consult runtime + peers directly → no controller bottleneck → concurrent execution
BPMN Ad-Hoc Sub-Process
MCP Gateway
runtime • history • peer state
T1
running
T2
running
T3
running
T4
running
T5
running
peer reads via MCP — no point-to-point wiring
Execution Timeline
t₀
tₙ
T1
T2 (concurrent)
T3 (concurrent)
T4 (concurrent)
T5 (concurrent)
overlapping execution — coordination is ambient, not centralized
Benefits
✓ Capability stays encapsulated in each task ✓ Controller is no longer the polymath bottleneck ✓ True concurrency, with real-time peer awareness