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name: swarms description: "Route Swarms users to the right single-agent, CLI, workflow, or tool/MCP guidance." metadata: disco-role: operating disable-model-invocation: true license: Apache 2.0

Swarms

Use this repo skill for the swarms Python package when the task is about building, routing, loading, or debugging Swarms agents and orchestrations.

Start here

• If the user is creating or tuning one Agent, go to sub-skills/single-agent/.
• If the user is using the swarms CLI, YAML, or markdown loaders, go to sub-skills/cli-loaders/.
• If the user is combining many agents with a swarm, router, graph, debate, vote, or chat pattern, go to sub-skills/multi-agent-workflows/.
• If the user is converting callables to tools or connecting MCP servers, go to sub-skills/tools-mcp/.

What this skill covers

• Single-agent construction, memory, skills, marketplace prompts, prompt caching, fallback models, and artifact handling.
• CLI commands and file-driven agent creation.
• Multi-agent orchestration patterns, routing, consensus, and collaboration.
• Tool schema conversion, BaseTool helpers, and MCP client/server workflows.

What this skill does not cover

• Release automation, Docker packaging, or repo-maintenance scripts.
• Benchmark harnesses and expensive evaluation loops.
• Voice-agent demos and AOP demo trees.
• Private repo checkout paths or workflow instructions that depend on the original source tree.

Quick install and smoke check

pip install swarms
swarms --help
python -c "from swarms import Agent; print(Agent.__name__)"

Optional runtime signals

• WORKSPACE_DIR controls where agent memory and workspace files are stored.
• SWARMS_API_KEY is required for marketplace fetch/publish workflows.
• OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, GROQ_API_KEY, and similar provider keys are required only for live model-backed runs.
• graphviz and rustworkx are optional for graph-workflow variety.

Read these next

• references/overview.md for the package map and route selection notes.
• references/troubleshooting.md for cross-cutting install, import, key, and backend issues.
• scripts/smoke.sh for a quick offline import and CLI check.

Routing rule of thumb

Choose the narrowest sub-skill that owns the user-facing workflow. Use the root only when the request spans multiple families or is about the package as a whole.

• single-agent owns one-agent configuration and its direct support objects.
• cli-loaders owns command-line entry points and config/file loading.
• multi-agent-workflows owns swarm orchestration and routing patterns.
• tools-mcp owns tool schema helpers and MCP transport/auth workflows.