Definition
Plain language
An open-source framework where AI agents take on software-company roles — designer, coder, tester — to build software together.
As stated in the literature
A multi-agent LLM framework that simulates a virtual software company, assigning role-based agents to collaborate through structured communication; cited alongside MetaGPT as an early role-organized multi-agent orchestration system.
Why it matters: It shows how splitting a big job across role-playing agents can produce working software with less human coordination than a single model doing everything.
For example, in ChatDev one agent plays the designer sketching the plan, another writes the code, and a third tests it, passing work between them like coworkers.
Heard on the show
“MetaGPT, ChatDev — those organized agents by job title, mimicking a software company.”Episode 139 — When Optimizing One GPU Kernel Quietly Breaks the Whole System