auditing-agent-architecturelisted

# Auditing Agent Architecture ## Overview Best-practice reference for the architecture layer of Claude-based agents: the execution loop, orchestration topology, subagent contracts, enforcement gates, hooks, decomposition, and session state. Each reference module states the correct pattern, the named anti-patterns, and ends with an **Audit Checklist** of verifiable conditions. ## When to use - Reviewing or designing an agent loop, coordinator, or subagent structure - Debugging: premature termination, infinite loops, dropped tool results, stalled or repeating agents, coverage gaps between subagents - Deciding: prompt guidance vs hard gates, hooks vs prompts, fixed pipeline vs dynamic decomposition Not for tool schemas or MCP servers (use designing-tools-and-mcp) or context-window degradation (use managing-context-reliability). ## Quick reference | Module | Read when the question is about | |---|---| | `references/1-1-agentic-loops.md` | Loop lifecycle, `stop_reason` branching, termination anti-patterns | | `references/1-2-multi-agent-orchestration.md` | Hub-and-spoke coordination, context isolation, decomposition coverage gaps | | `references/1-3-subagent-invocation-and-context-passing.md` | Task tool, structured metadata handoff, parallel spawning, `fork_session` | | `references/1-4-workflow-enforcement-and-handoff.md` | Prompt guidance vs programmatic gates, prerequisite gates, handoff protocols | | `references/1-5-agent-sdk-hooks.md` | PreToolUse/PostToolUse policy en