Skip to main content

Delegation Skip — Antipattern Nomination

Status: Draft (submitted 2026-04-16 by PSSaaS Collaborator after PowerFill Phase 2 retrospective identified the pattern). Awaiting PO approval per docs-site/docs/agents/process-discipline.md §Nomination Process.

Relay message (paste to Collaborator / PO)​

Copy everything inside the fence.

Nomination: Delegation Skip

Behavior: A high-context specialist agent (e.g., Systems Architect) does
implementation work that the multi-agent structure specifies should flow
to a less-specialized agent (Developer subagent, manual relay to a
cheaper model). The specialist chooses self-implementation because the
context-transfer cost to a Developer looks higher than the cost of doing
the work. Over multiple phases this concentrates context pressure in the
specialist, forfeits the cost benefit of cheaper models for mechanical
work, and eliminates the second-set-of-eyes review that handoffs produce.

Example: PSSaaS PowerFill Phases 1 and 2 (2026-04-16). The Systems
Architect self-implemented 17 EF Core entities, 9 upstream projection
entities, 9 near-identical preflight checks, ~60 tests, multiple SQL
deployment scripts, and supporting infrastructure changes. Each entity
and each check is templated, mechanical work that fit the fast-subagent
criteria in developer-context.md ("Scaffolding, boilerplate, find-
replace, templates"). The Architect produced excellent work and caught
three Truth-Rot instances, but did so while accumulating significant
context load — and the multi-agent structure was explicitly designed
to prevent that accumulation. Phase 0 retrospective already noted the
Collaborator's context load reached ~10K lines of output; Phases 1-2
added thousands more lines of code, tests, and SQL.

Distinct from:
- Attention drain — that's asking the PO for feedback on trivia. Delegation
  Skip is about avoiding delegation downward, not distracting the PO.
- Sunk cost retention — that's keeping wrong work done. Delegation Skip is
  about choosing not to hand off work in the first place, where the work
  is often correct.
- Batch accumulation — that's deferring review. Delegation Skip is about
  concentrating work in one agent's context regardless of review cadence.

Proposed name: Delegation Skip (alternatives considered: "Context hoarding",
"Specialist creep", "Top-heavy delegation")

Proposed countermeasure: "Required Delegation Categories" — the Architect
kickoff prompt and the developer-context.md must enumerate specific task
categories that MUST be delegated rather than self-implemented, unless an
explicit justification is captured in the plan. Default-delegate categories:

- Templated entity scaffolding (more than 3 similar entities)
- Boilerplate tests following an existing pattern (more than 5 similar tests)
- Mechanical find/replace across files (more than 10 files)
- SQL script generation from a documented schema (more than 5 tables)
- Find-and-replace refactors where the target state is unambiguous

When the Architect believes self-implementation is warranted despite the
task matching a default-delegate category, it documents the justification
in the plan's "Deliberate Non-Delegation" section. This forces the
decision to be conscious rather than defaulted.

Why new countermeasure: Existing gates (Alternatives-First, Consolidation,
Primary-Source Verification) cover decision quality and code structure.
None cover the decision to do work yourself vs. delegate it. The multi-
agent structure assumes delegation happens; Delegation Skip is the
failure mode when that assumption isn't enforced.

Submitted by: PSSaaS Collaborator, 2026-04-16, after PowerFill Phase 2
completion.
  • PowerFill Phase 1 devlog (docs-site/docs/devlog/2026-04-16-powerfill-phase-1.md) — Architect self-implementation begins
  • PowerFill Phase 2 devlog (docs-site/docs/devlog/2026-04-16-powerfill-phase-2.md) — pattern continues at larger scale
  • Developer context (docs-site/docs/agents/developer-context.md) — specifies what developer agents should do
  • Architect context (docs-site/docs/agents/architect-context.md) — specifies architect's delegation authority
  • Process discipline canonical (docs-site/docs/agents/process-discipline.md) — where the new practice would land

Disposition​

Awaiting PO approval. Once approved:

  • Add Delegation Skip to the antipattern vocabulary
  • Add Required Delegation Categories as a Gate (or a Checkpoint — TBD by canonical structure)
  • Update architect-context.md with the Deliberate Non-Delegation requirement
  • Update future kickoff prompts (starting with Phase 3) to enforce the new discipline
  • Update PSX relay stub so sibling projects inherit the practice