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Amplifier Swarm

Parallel task execution with real-time monitoring

2,496
Lines of Python
7
Source Files
v0.1.0
Current Release

ramparte/amplifier-toolkit · Sam Schillace · February 2026

The Problem

Agent workflows hit a wall when tasks pile up and run one at a time.

Serial Bottleneck

Tasks queued sequentially. A 50-task run waits for every predecessor to finish before the next begins.

👁️

No Visibility

No dashboard, no progress. You start a run and hope for the best—or grep through raw log files.

⚠️

Failure Modes

Orphaned processes, race conditions on shared state, no automatic recovery when a worker crashes mid-task.

Architecture

Four layers, each with a single responsibility.

🌐 Web Dashboard
FastAPI + WebSockets · Real-time task status
🎓 Orchestrator
Dispatches tasks · Manages worker pool · Handles retries
⚙️ Worker 1
Isolated process
⚙️ Worker 2
Isolated process
⚙️ Worker N
Isolated process
🗃️ SQLite Queue
Durable task state · No external dependencies

Source files: database.py, orchestrator.py, worker.py, dashboard.py, cli.py, migrate.py, __init__.py

Key Features

🗃️

SQLite Task Queue

No Redis, no RabbitMQ. A single SQLite file holds all task state. Durable, portable, zero-config.

⚙️

Parallel Workers

N workers run in separate processes. N workers reduce wall-clock time proportionally to available parallelism.

🔄

Automatic Retries

Failed tasks re-queued automatically. Configurable retry count keeps transient failures from stalling runs.

🌐

Web Dashboard

FastAPI serves a live view over WebSockets. Progress, worker health, and task results update in real time.

🔍

Orphan Detection

Uses psutil to detect workers that vanished without updating state. Reclaims their tasks automatically.

🛑️

Graceful Shutdown

Signal handlers let in-flight tasks finish cleanly. No half-written results or corrupted queue state.

Real-Time Dashboard

FastAPI + WebSockets push updates as tasks complete. No polling.

Amplifier Swarm Monitor
Live
50
Total
38
Completed
4
Running
8
Queued
Progress 76%
38 / 50
Worker 1 task-027
Worker 2 task-031
Worker 3 task-044
Worker 4 task-012
Illustrative mockup based on dashboard.py capabilities

Built to Recover

Production workloads crash. Swarm is designed to keep going.

🔄

Automatic Retries

Transient failures—API timeouts, rate limits—are retried without manual intervention. Configurable limits prevent infinite loops.

🔍

Orphan Detection

psutil checks whether worker PIDs are alive. Tasks claimed by dead processes are automatically returned to the queue.

💾

Crash Recovery

All state lives in SQLite. On restart, the orchestrator reads the queue, finds incomplete tasks, and resumes where it left off.

Production Evidence

swarm.db, swarm.db.backup, and swarm-full.log found in the wordbs project directory—confirming active production use with real task data.

Before & After

Sequential execution vs. Amplifier Swarm.

Before — Sequential

  • Tasks run one at a time
  • No progress visibility
  • Manual restart on failure
  • State in memory only
  • Wall-clock time = sum of all tasks

After — Amplifier Swarm

  • N workers run in parallel
  • Live web dashboard
  • Automatic retry + orphan recovery
  • Durable SQLite queue
  • Wall-clock time ÷ N workers

Real example (wordbs project): 50 tasks processed via Swarm. With 4 workers, wall-clock time reduces to roughly ¼ of sequential execution.

Getting Started

1

Install from the toolkit

Amplifier Swarm ships inside amplifier-toolkit.

2

Define your tasks

Tasks are YAML entries. Each has a name, command, and optional dependencies.

3

Run the swarm

The CLI launches the orchestrator, workers, and optional dashboard in one command.

# Install pip install amplifier-toolkit # Run 4 workers with the dashboard amplifier-swarm run --workers 4 --dashboard tasks.yaml # Check status amplifier-swarm status

Dependencies: click, rich, pyyaml, fastapi, uvicorn, websockets, psutil · MIT License

Sources & Methodology

Data as of
February 20, 2026
Status
Active — in amplifier-toolkit, used in production (wordbs project)
Repository
ramparte/amplifier-toolkit → tools/amplifier-swarm
Primary Contributor
Sam Schillace (from git log)
Author
Microsoft Amplifier Team (from pyproject.toml)
Research Methods
find commands on ~/dev/ANext and ~/.amplifier/cache; pyproject.toml analysis; Python line count via find . -name "*.py" | xargs wc -l
Verified Numbers
2,496 lines of Python (wc -l) · 7 source files (find) · v0.1.0 (pyproject.toml) · MIT license
Production Evidence
swarm.db, swarm.db.backup, swarm-full.log found at ~/dev/ANext/wordbs/
Known Gaps
Development timeline not verifiable from cache repo (only 1 commit visible). Exact session count unverifiable. Previous deck claimed "3,812 lines"—actual count is 2,496. Previous deck claimed "12 files"—actual count is 7 Python source files.

Try Amplifier Swarm

Parallel task execution, real-time monitoring, and crash recovery—in 2,496 lines of Python.

pip install amplifier-toolkit amplifier-swarm run --workers 4 tasks.yaml
View on GitHub →

MIT License · v0.1.0 · ramparte/amplifier-toolkit

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