Agent Swarms
An agent swarm is the AI counterpart of an application: the basic deployable unit whose components are AI agents. It does not contain code itself — it groups agents that are versioned, packaged, configured per environment and deployed together. On top of what an application does, CodeNOW wires every agent into the account's Agent Gateway, gives it an identity (a service account) and connects the agents of a swarm with each other.
Key concepts
| Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Agent | A component of an agent swarm, created from an agent template. It runs in the environment where the swarm is deployed. |
| Agent Gateway | The account's entry point for AI traffic. Exposed agents are registered in it; agents call models, MCP servers and other agents through it. See Agent Gateway. |
| Service account | The identity an agent runs as. Required before the first deployment; the agent can do only what its service account may do. See Service Accounts. |
| A2A endpoint | The agent's own Agent-to-Agent endpoint, reachable through the gateway at https://agent-gateway.<data plane host>/agents/<swarm>/<environment>/<agent>. It can be hidden or restricted to selected teams and service accounts. |
| A2A connections | Other agents this agent calls. Agents of the same swarm are connected automatically; agents of other swarms are declared by the agent and filled in per environment. |
| Admin console | An optional web console of the agent (if its template has one). Access can be limited to selected users and teams. |
Before you start
- The Agent Gateway must be enabled for the account and installed on a data plane — otherwise agents cannot be created.
- You need a service account you are allowed to use for each agent (one you own, or one owned by a team you are a member of).
What You Can Do
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Browse agent swarms | View, search and filter all agent swarms you have access to |
| Create a new agent swarm | Set a name, description and deployment targets |
| View agent swarm detail | See agents, packages, deployment configurations and deployments |
| Agents | Create agents, manage their repositories, builds and default configuration |
| Packages | Version the swarm as a set of agent releases |
| Deployment Configuration | Configure agents per environment — including service account and A2A |
| Deployments | Deploy, redeploy and undeploy the swarm |
| Delete agent swarm | Permanently remove the swarm |
| Permissions | Manage who can access and modify the swarm |
| Continuous Delivery | Configure deployment quality gates |
| Agent Runtime | What a deployed agent receives and must support (for template authors) |
Agent swarms are also available in the public API (agent swarms, agents, their builds, packages, deployment configurations and deployments) — see the API reference.