Crews And Process Types

Crew has tasks=[t1, t2, t3] under Process.sequential. t2 declares context=[t3] (referencing a downstream task).

Under sequential process, tasks execute in tasks[] order — t1, t2, t3. A context dependency on a not-yet-run task means t2 sees None / empty for t3. Reject this misconfiguration at construction or move t3 ahead of t2. Do not auto-reorder.

Operator sets Crew(process=Process.hierarchical) without manager_llm or manager_agent.

Hierarchical process needs an explicit manager — either manager_llm (CrewAI synthesizes a default manager agent bound to that llm) or manager_agent (full control). Without one, kickoff should raise. Do not pick a worker agent as implicit manager.

Operator enables Crew(planning=True) — adds a planner pre-pass that creates a step-by-step plan before agents execute.

Planning adds a pre-pass that injects a plan into each task's context. Verify the plan is observable in the task prompt and budget the additional tokens. Disable planning for simple sequential crews where it's pure overhead — measure before/after token cost on a representative run.