Router

Router classifies each request and hands it to exactly one specialist Agent. It is the cheapest multi-agent pattern (one classifier call plus one specialist run), so use it when requests fall into clear categories that each need a different specialist. Other frameworks have the same shape: the OpenAI Agents SDK “handoff” pattern, CrewAI sequential processes, LangGraph conditional edges.

Pattern

1. Classify. A small fast LLM call decides which route handles the input best. Its answer is matched to a route name ignoring case, markdown and quotes, and treating spaces, hyphens and underscores alike, so **Route:** Tech Support reaches tech_support.
2. Dispatch. The chosen specialist Agent runs to completion with its own model / memory / tools / architecture.
3. Return. The specialist’s output becomes the Router’s output. No cross-specialist synthesis.

Compared to Supervisor

• Cheaper: 1 Classification + 1 specialist; no synthesis pass.
• Deterministic: Single specialist owns the task end-to-end.
• Less flexible: No multi-domain tasks; routing errors cascade.

Usage

from loomflow import Agent
from loomflow.architecture import RouterRoute
from loomflow.team import Team
 
billing = Agent("Handle billing questions.", model="claude-opus-4-7", tools=[...])
tech    = Agent("Handle technical questions.", model="claude-opus-4-7", tools=[...])
sales   = Agent("Handle sales questions.", model="claude-opus-4-7")
 
team = Team.router(
    routes=[
        RouterRoute(name="billing", agent=billing,
                    description="Charges, refunds, invoicing, plan changes."),
        RouterRoute(name="tech", agent=tech,
                    description="Errors, debugging, integration help."),
        RouterRoute(name="sales", agent=sales,
                    description="Pricing, demos, contracts, partnerships."),
    ],
    instructions="You are the customer support entry point.",
    model="claude-haiku-4-5",   # small fast classifier
)
 
result = await team.run("My credit card was charged twice.")
# Routed to billing.

When to use

• Customer support: Route to billing / tech / sales / general.
• Coding agent gateway: Route to language-specific specialists.
• Search front-end: Route between retrieval strategies.

The classifier is the cost knob. Use a small fast model (Haiku, gpt-4o-mini) for the classifier and reserve the big model for specialists.