# Pool workflow

## Topology

One ensemble process owning N identical sub-agents. Each tell/ask
lands on the next free worker; when all are busy, prompts queue FIFO
and dispatch as workers free up.

```
+-------+    +-------+    +----------+
|  E.*  | -> | Pool  | -> | worker 1 | -> backend session 1
+-------+    |       |    +----------+
             |       |    +----------+
             |       | -> | worker 2 | -> backend session 2
             |       |    +----------+
             |       |    +----------+
             |       | -> | worker N | -> backend session N
             +-------+    +----------+
```

## When to reach for it

- You have many independent prompts and want them answered in
  parallel.
- You want bounded concurrency: "up to N at once, overflow queues."
- The work is homogeneous -- same system prompt and backend for
  each worker.

For coordinated fan-out where the sub-prompts are derived from a
parent prompt, use Supervisor. For a pipeline of transformations
through different agents, use Pipeline.

## Config

```elixir
config :gen_agent_ensemble,
  ensembles: [
    [
      name: "qa-pool",
      strategy: GenAgentEnsemble.Strategies.Pool,
      opts: [
        worker_count: 3,
        worker_template:
          {"qa", GenAgentEnsemble.Agents.Simple,
           backend: GenAgent.Backends.Anthropic,
           system: "Answer tersely. One paragraph max.",
           model: "claude-sonnet-4-6"}
      ]
    ]
  ]
```

Workers are automatically named `"qa-1"`, `"qa-2"`, `"qa-3"` from
the template's prefix.

## Canonical workflow

### Fan-out batch

```elixir
iex> questions = ["What is GenServer?", "What is a Supervisor?", "What is ETS?"]
iex> tokens = for q <- questions, do: elem(E.tell("qa-pool", q), 1)
["tok-3", "tok-4", "tok-5"]

iex> E.status("qa-pool")
{:ok, %{busy: 3, free: 0, queued: 0, workers: ["qa-1", "qa-2", "qa-3"], ...}}

iex> Process.sleep(5_000)
iex> E.drain("qa-pool")
[
  {"tok-3", "A GenServer is..."},
  {"tok-4", "A Supervisor is..."},
  {"tok-5", "ETS is..."}
]
```

Fire the tells in a single pipeline (`for` comprehension or
`Enum.map`) so they land at the Pool before any can finish.
Otherwise the first one completes and frees its worker, which then
picks up the second, and you lose parallelism -- see the gotcha
below.

### Overflow queueing

```elixir
iex> tokens = for q <- many_questions(), do: elem(E.tell("qa-pool", q), 1)
iex> E.status("qa-pool")
{:ok, %{busy: 3, free: 0, queued: 7, ...}}

# Drain as they finish:
iex> :timer.tc(fn -> Enum.each(tokens, &E.await("qa-pool", &1, 30_000)) end)
```

### One-off sync through the pool

```elixir
iex> E.ask!("qa-pool", "single question")
```

Uses whichever worker is free. If all are busy, queues behind them.

## Variations

- **Worker count.** Tune `worker_count:` for concurrency vs cost.
  Three is a reasonable default.
- **Heterogeneous workers?** Not directly -- Pool clones one
  template. If you need different system prompts per worker, use
  Supervisor with a `:worker_template` and a decomposer that
  assigns roles, or run multiple Pool ensembles.

## Gotchas

- **Workers retain per-worker conversation history.** The Pool
  recycles workers across turns, and each worker's backend session
  persists. If you fire three sequential tells slowly enough that
  each finishes before the next arrives, all three land on the same
  worker and accumulate as a multi-turn conversation -- you'll see
  input-token counts grow and the worker's system prompt drift under
  the accumulated context. Fire tells in one shot (`Enum.map`) to
  spread across workers, or swap in a fresh-session callback module
  if you need isolated single turns.
- **`status` races against fast turns.** If you call `E.status` in a
  separate iex line after firing tells, a sub-second turn may have
  already completed, showing `busy: 0`. Capture status right after
  dispatch in the same expression if you want to see the in-flight
  state.
- **Worker death shrinks the pool.** If all workers die, the session
  halts (`{:halt, :pool_exhausted}`). Restart the ensemble to
  recover.