What's the difference between an orchestrator and a regular agent?

A regular agent does the work: writes code, runs tests, edits files. An orchestrator decides what needs doing, hands it to other agents and checks it got done. Think manager and individual contributor.

Is orchestration the same as an agent loop?

Related but different. Orchestration is the pattern of one agent coordinating others. An agent loop is one way to run it: the orchestrator works in a cycle, checking for work and handing it out. You can orchestrate once without a loop, or loop with one agent and no orchestration.

Why not just use one really good agent?

Context limits. One agent that plans, builds, reviews and tests a feature either runs out of context or loses track of earlier decisions. Splitting the work gives each agent a clean context for one job.

What does Pane's orchestrator (Pane Chat) do?

Pane Chat is an orchestrator inside Pane. You tell it what you want, agree the approach, and it creates panes, starts agents, opens reviews and reports back, using the runpane CLI. Sessions do the same as named, persistent chats with their own workspace.

Do I need orchestration?

If you run one agent on one task, probably not. It helps when you have several tasks, want reviews from a separate agent, or want to automate the cycle of create, build, review and merge.

glossary

what is agent orchestration?

TL;DR

Agent orchestration is when one AI agent coordinates other agents instead of doing all the work itself, like a tech lead delegating to a team. The orchestrator splits the work, starts an agent per task in its own workspace, checks progress, answers questions and reports back. It works better than one long conversation because each agent keeps a focused context. In Pane, Sessions are the orchestrator: a chat with Claude Code, Codex or Cursor that drives your panes.

Download*

Windows SmartScreen warningDirect downloads can show a SmartScreen warning while Pane is unsigned. Pane is fully open source, so you can audit the code and build from source yourself.1. Click More info2. Click Run anyway3. Continue the installerThe PowerShell install downloads the official release directly and avoids most browser download friction.npm global install

Paste that in PowerShell.Linux

Agent orchestration is when one AI agent coordinates other agents instead of doing the work itself. It's the difference between one developer doing everything and a tech lead handing tasks to a team and checking the results.

the problem

One agent doing everything runs out of context and focus.

AI agents are good at focused jobs: build this feature, review this pull request, fix this bug. One agent doing everything on a big project hits limits fast. Its context window fills, it forgets earlier decisions, and when it plans, builds and reviews in one conversation, quality drops.

Human teams solved this long ago. People specialize, and someone coordinates.

orchestrator vs orchestration

Orchestration is the pattern; the orchestrator is the agent doing it.

Orchestration is the pattern. An orchestrator is the agent or program doing it: the one that splits the work, starts the other agents, watches them and reports back. In 2026 the orchestrator is usually an agent itself, a lead agent with tools to start and steer others, rather than a fixed workflow engine.

Several tools now ship one: Pane's Sessions, Omnigent's Polly, the lead agents in Solo and super.engineering, and Ghostex's coordinators. Others use fixed pipelines instead, like Kandev's stages or Reliant's YAML workflows. See AI agent orchestration tools for a comparison.

how orchestration works

Split, start, check, report. You talk to one agent instead of five.

1You talk to the orchestrator. "I need these three issues worked on."
2It breaks the work down. One task per agent, each in its own isolated workspace.
3It starts specialized agents. An implementation agent for coding, a review agent for checking, a test agent for validation.
4It checks on progress. Reads what each agent is doing, answers their questions, moves work forward.
5It reports to you. "Issue 1 is done and ready for review. Issue 2 needs your input on the API design. Issue 3 is still running."

why it's better than one agent

Clean context per agent, parallel work and independent review.

Clean context. Each agent starts fresh with only the information it needs. No leftover planning notes cluttering the implementation agent's context.

Parallel work. Three agents can work on three issues at the same time. One agent can only do one thing at a time.

Independent review. A review agent that didn't write the code catches things the author wouldn't. Same principle as human code review.

You stay in control. You talk to one orchestrator instead of managing five agents yourself. The orchestrator handles the coordination.

orchestration in pane

Pane Chat and Sessions are orchestrators built in; runpane lets you bring your own.

Pane has two built-in orchestrators. Pane Chat is a chat with Claude Code, Codex or Cursor that sits outside any repo and drives your panes. Sessions are named, persistent orchestrator chats, each with its own workspace, that keep track of the panes they start. Both use the runpane CLI to create panes, start agents, read their output and report results.

You can also bring your own orchestrator. Anything that can run terminal commands, such as Codex, Claude Code, a shell script or cron, can use runpane to control the workspace, and agents can also reach Pane through its MCP server.

Sources

Corrections

If anything here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we'll fix it and update the date at the top. Open an issue on GitHub

Sources

frequently asked questions