At least two weeks of use with one bot, so you have real history to look at.
A swarm is a few bots that each own one area, plus one bot that coordinates. It isn’t about having more bots. It’s about each bot carrying less context, so it does its job better and you stop being the glue.
Steps
Look for the signs
You’ve outgrown one bot when: the chat is long and the bot forgets earlier decisions; you retype the same instructions; one job’s rules leak into another (a casual social tone in a client email); or two heavy tasks fight over the computer.
Know when not to split
Keep one bot if your work is light, if the jobs share almost all their context, or if you don’t yet have a skill that makes the job repeatable. Splitting too early just gives you more chats to check.
Draw your lanes
List your recurring work and group it into two to four areas that need different apps, tone or memory. Inbox and calendar is one lane. Content is another. Research is a third.
Screenshot comingA simple lane map: chief of staff in the middle, three lanes around it
Pick one lane to move first
Choose the lane with the clearest inputs and outputs, and a skill you already trust. Create a bot for it with a one-paragraph job description and a never-do list.
Decide who coordinates
Your primary bot becomes the chief of staff: it hands out work, collects results and sends you one brief. Bots can message and hand work to each other, so you don’t have to copy results by hand.
Copy-paste prompt
Paste this to your bot. Replace anything in [brackets].
Copy-paste prompt
Look at our recent work together. List the jobs you’ve done for me, grouped into two to four lanes that need different apps, tone or memory. For each lane: how often it comes up, which apps it needs, and whether it already has a skill. Then recommend whether I should split off a second bot now, which lane it should own, and one reason not to split yet if there is one.
Check it worked
You have a lane map with two to four lanes.
You decided yes or no on a second bot, with a reason.
If yes, the new bot has a job description and a never-do list.
Common mistakes
Creating five bots on day one. Start with one extra lane.
Splitting by app instead of by job. A “Gmail bot” is a worse idea than an “Inbox triage bot”.
No coordinator. Without a chief of staff you just have more chats to check.