Worker-adviser separates an adviser role that recommends or critiques from a worker role that performs the work.
What It Is
Worker-adviser is a technique that separates an adviser role from a worker role, also called a performer. The adviser recommends, critiques, or guides. The worker does the work. Keeping advise and perform apart lets advice shape the outcome without collapsing both roles into one unreviewed agent pass.
Why It Matters
When one agent both advises and acts, ownership blurs: it is hard to tell who decided, who critiqued, and which change actually landed. Worker-adviser keeps those responsibilities distinct, so critique can land before or beside execution, and readers can tell advisory guidance from the performed change.
How It Works
In worker-adviser, the handoff stays visible. The adviser produces guidance or critique. The worker, or performer, acts on the task. Those advise and perform responsibilities stay separate, so advice is not silently rewritten as the only outcome and performed work is not treated as unexamined advice. Advice can precede a work pass, accompany it, or follow it as critique. What a reader can recognize is the role boundary itself: one voice recommends or critiques, another voice does the work.
Compared To Nearby Techniques
Worker-adviser separates advise from perform: one role recommends or critiques, another role does the work. Writer-reviewer is different — it is a write then review accept-or-reject quality loop, not an advise-versus-perform split. Planner-executor plans work into slices and then executes those slices; the split is plan versus run, not advice versus performance. Classify-execute routes a task by work class and then runs the matching path. Workqueue-executor drains an ordered work queue. The workers configuration reference explains how to declare worker backends; it is not the advise-versus-perform technique itself.