CLAUDE CODE AGENTS: ADVANCED ORCHESTRATION - Chapter 10 (Capstone), Exercise 1
Why the Three Research Checks Form a Valid Fan-Out
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QUESTION:
Explain why the three research checks in Stage 1 are genuinely independent
of each other, making them a valid fan-out, using Chapter 3's own deciding
question.

SOLUTION / EXPLANATION:

Chapter 3's deciding question for any two tasks is: does one need the
other's actual result before it can start? Applying that question to each
pair among the three Stage 1 checks:

- Checking course_folder_mapping.md for the folder/filename convention
  doesn't require knowing anything from course_name_index.md or
  completed_courses.md - it's reading its own separate file for its own
  separate piece of information.
- Checking course_name_index.md for the full course name similarly doesn't
  depend on what the other two checks find - it's a lookup against its own
  file, answerable on its own.
- Checking completed_courses.md for a possible existing overlapping entry
  is, again, its own independent lookup, needing neither of the other two
  results to be carried out.

Since no pair among these three tasks requires the other's actual output
to begin, all three genuinely satisfy Chapter 3's deciding question in the
"independent" direction - each could be answered in complete isolation from
the other two, using only its own source file. This is exactly the profile
Chapter 3 names as appropriate for parallel execution: launching all three
at once produces the same three answers as running them one after another
would, just in less total wall-clock time, since none of them is actually
waiting on anything the others produce.

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WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER:
It applies Chapter 3's own deciding question explicitly to each pair among
the three research checks, confirming genuine independence for each rather
than simply asserting the fan-out is valid without checking.