---
title: "Blackboard · agent topology · Agent Fieldbook"
url: https://agentfieldbook.org/design/topologies/blackboard/
description: "A shared workspace agents read and write opportunistically, without direct coupling. No fixed control flow."
section: "Design · Topologies"
source: Agent Fieldbook — generated from the published page
---

# Blackboard

A shared workspace agents read and write opportunistically, without direct coupling. No fixed control flow.

A blackboard agent coordinates through a shared workspace rather than a control flow. Every agent reads the current state of the blackboard, contributes what it can, and writes its result back for others to build on, opportunistically, with no fixed order and no central dispatcher. Coordination is emergent from the shared state: an agent acts when the blackboard holds something it can advance. It suits open, ill-structured problems where the path is not known up front and different specialists each move the work forward when they are able. In anatomy terms the memory plane is the coordination substrate, and the reasoning cores orbit it.

## In the anatomy

A shared memory/state plane (the blackboard) is the coordination substrate; multiple reasoning cores read and write it opportunistically; there is no orchestrator; the perimeter governs what may be written back.

## At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Pattern | Blackboard |
| State model | durable |

## Common use cases

## Strengths

## Weaknesses

## Basis

Description, use cases and trade-offs: Field Book analysis, synthesised from established agent-architecture literature.