Router Agent
A lightweight agent whose only job is to read a request and send it to the right specialist.
Think of it like
A receptionist who doesn’t solve your problem but knows exactly which office to point you to.
Example
An incoming message hits the router, which decides “this is a billing issue” and forwards it to the billing agent rather than answering itself.
How it actually works
A router agent classifies or triages input and dispatches it, keeping specialized agents focused and cheap to run. It is usually a small, fast model since the decision is simple. The failure mode is misrouting — send a question to the wrong specialist and the whole chain produces a confident, off-target answer, so routers are worth evaluating on their own.
For product teams
A cheap way to make a pile of narrow agents feel like one smart assistant.
For engineers
A classifier-style agent that maps requests to downstream agents or tools, typically run on a small fast model.
Related
- Multi-Agent — The multi-agent setups it steers traffic within.
- Supervisor Agent — The boss that a router often reports into.
- Handoff — Passing the request onward once routed.
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