Library › Book 3 › The OpenObserve Council of Sub-Agents
The OpenObserve Council of Sub-Agents
8.1🔒The ChallengeOpenObserve is an open-source observability platform written in Rust. It faced a critical challenge: a codebase with only 380 tests, many…
8.2🔒Architecture: Eight Specialized AgentsNotice that this is a hybrid of the Orchestrator pattern (the Council Orchestrator directs work) and the pipeline pattern (agents hand off…
8.3🔒ResultsThese numbers tell a compelling story. The system nearly doubled the test count, cut flakiness by 85%, and reduced the human time…
8.4🔒Key Design DecisionsEach agent writes to a shared JSON state file, but only reads the sections relevant to its role. This prevents context pollution -- the…
8.5🔒Deep Dive: The Flaky DetectorThe Flaky Detector was the single most impactful agent. Here is how it works:
8.6🔒Deep Dive: The Test Fixer AgentThe Test Fixer was the most complex agent because it needed to understand:
8.7🔒Lessons LearnedEarly attempts with a single "do everything" agent produced mediocre results:
8.8🔒Applying OpenObserve's Lessons to Your ProjectsThe minimum viable version of this system requires just one engineer and three agents. You do not need eight agents to start.
8.9🔒Building Your Own Council: Step-by-StepHere is a practical roadmap for implementing a simplified OpenObserve-style council:
8.10🔒From Case Study to MainstreamOpenObserve built its council by hand because nothing off the shelf did the job. As of July 2026, the industry has caught up -- and it…
8.11🔒Career Translation- Led implementation of multi-agent testing council (modeled on OpenObserve's architecture) with 5 specialized agents, growing test suite…
8.12🔒Q&AInterview Depth CheckPrompt: The OpenObserve Test Fixer agent must distinguish between a test bug and an application bug. A test fails with "expected status…