Harmonic Coordination Theory
As Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) scale from single-agent tools to complex ensembles of 50+ agents, they face a 'Coordination Crisis.' Current graph-based paradigms (DAGs) model dependencies but fail to model dynamics: the qualitative aspects of 'how' agents interact. Harmonic Coordination Theory (HCT) proposes a new ontology based on musical performance theory to bridge this semantic gap.
Key Contributions
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A New Layer Model (Layers 0-5): Distinguishing Transport (MCP), Orchestration (LangGraph), and Semantic Coordination (HCT).
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Signal Theory: Moving beyond message passing to "Signals" (continuous, ambient state broadcasts) for high-bandwidth, low-latency coordination.
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The Musical Metaphor: Formalizing concepts like Dissonance (semantic conflict), Tempo (execution speed), and Fermata (deadlock) as rigorous engineering primitives.
Paper Structure
- Section 1: The "Tower of Babel" in modern agent systems
- Section 2: The Ontology - Defining the Musical vocabulary for MAS
- Section 3: The HCT Layer Model - 6-layer stack evaluation
- Section 4: Signal Theory - HCT Signals vs. Classic Messages
- Section 5: Limitations - Where the metaphor breaks down
Citation
@misc{wiest2025hct,
title = {Harmonic Coordination Theory: A Musical Ontology for Multi-Agent Systems},
author = {Wiest, Stefan},
year = {2025},
howpublished = {\url{https://stefanwiest.de/research/papers/harmonic-coordination-theory/}},
note = {Research Preview}
}