HTN-Orchestrate: A Hierarchical Task Network Framework for Multi-Agent Orchestration

Key points

• Dynamic dispatch approaches provide execution flexibility but do not explicitly model subtask hierarchies or dependencies, while predefined workflows impose this structure but fix the decomposition before execution begins.1
• Therefore, we introduce HTN-Orchestrate, a two-layer framework that separates these responsibilities through a hierarchical task network (HTN).1
• The Planner maintains subtask hierarchies and dependencies, deferring decomposition until prerequisite results become available, while local Orchestrators schedule workers to execute each leaf subtask.1
• On five benchmarks spanning web research, scientific reasoning, and research workflows, HTN-Orchestrate outperforms ReAct, Agent Team, and DeepSeek Harness using the same base model, achieving 89.73% accuracy on BrowseComp and 73.44% on SUPERChem, exceeding Agent Team by 2.45 and 4.69 percentage points, respectively.1

Sources (1)

• [1]HTN-Orchestrate: A Hierarchical Task Network Framework for Multi-Agent Orchestration
  arXiv (AI, ML, NLP, CV, robotics, multi-agent) · Oct 15, 04:45 PM

  Orchestrating multiple agents on a complex task requires reconciling local subtask execution with global task planning.

  Dynamic dispatch approaches provide execution flexibility but do not explicitly model subtask hierarchies or dependencies, while predefined workflows impose this structure but fix the decomposition before execution begins.

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