Queue Ownership Should Be Explicit Before Agents Compete for It

Queue ownership rules should be explicit before multiple agents compete for the same work or handoff semantics will drift under load.

Queues look simple until two agents both believe they are allowed to claim the same work. Ownership ambiguity becomes a workflow bug long before it becomes a throughput bug.

Define these rules up front

• Who can claim the work.
• What evidence proves ownership.
• How the queue state changes if the owner fails.

Use the architecture guide, blackboard schema, and examples to define queue ownership explicitly.