---
title: "Router / Dispatch · agent topology · Agent Fieldbook"
url: https://agentfieldbook.org/design/topologies/router-dispatch/
description: "Classify intent and route to exactly one of N branches: not all. A cheap triage front-door, distinct from Hub & Spoke."
section: "Design · Topologies"
source: Agent Fieldbook — generated from the published page
---

# Router / Dispatch

Classify intent and route to exactly one of N branches: not all. A cheap triage front-door, distinct from Hub & Spoke.

A router agent does one cheap thing well: classify the incoming intent and route it to exactly one of N branches, not all of them. It is a triage front-door, distinct from hub-spoke, which fans out to several specialists and aggregates. The router commits to a single downstream path, so it stays fast and cheap and keeps the expensive machinery behind the branch that actually needs to run. It suits high-volume entry points where most requests have one clear destination. In anatomy terms it is a lightweight classifier core in front of N independent sub-agents.

## In the anatomy

A lightweight classifier core reads the request and selects exactly one of N downstream branches; unlike a hub it does not aggregate; each branch owns its own effectors; the perimeter gates the branch's writes.

## At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Pattern | Router / Dispatch |
| State model | stateless |

## Common use cases

## Strengths

## Weaknesses

## Basis

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