The CEO/COO/Team Analogy

The best way to understand multi-agent systems is to think about how companies work.

You Are The CEO

As the human, you're the CEO. You:

• Set the vision and goals
• Make high-level decisions
• Approve important actions
• Review results

You don't do the work yourself. You delegate.

Your Main Agent Is The COO

Your primary OpenClaw agent is like a Chief Operating Officer:

• Understands your goals (reads SOUL.md, USER.md)
• Manages day-to-day operations
• Coordinates the team
• Reports important things to you
• Handles routine decisions autonomously

The COO doesn't need to ask you about every email. They know your preferences. They use judgment. They escalate when needed.

Sub-Agents Are The Team

When work needs to be done, the COO delegates to specialists:

These workers:

• Get specific tasks from the COO
• Have focused capabilities
• Report back when done
• Don't need to know everything

Memory Is The Shared Notebook

In a real company, knowledge lives in:

• Meeting notes
• Project docs
• Wikis
• Shared drives

For agents, memory is the same thing:

• MEMORY.md = Executive summary / index
• memory/daily/ = Meeting notes
• memory/projects/ = Project documentation
• memory/people/ = Contact database
• memory/knowledge/ = Playbooks and lessons

Everyone can access what they need. The COO maintains the index.

Tools Are The Interns

Sometimes you don't need thinking — you need doing:

• Fetch this web page
• Run this command
• Check this price
• Send this message

These are tools, not agents. They don't reason. They execute.

Rule of thumb:

• Needs precision → Use a tool
• Needs judgment → Use an agent

Why This Matters

When you understand this hierarchy, you stop trying to make one mega-agent do everything.

Bad: "I'll make my agent super smart and give it every tool!" Good: "I'll make a coordinator that delegates to specialists."

The coordinator stays light. Sub-agents stay focused. Tools stay simple.

This is how you build systems that scale.