Anthropic researcher Nicholas Carlini orchestrated 16 parallel Claude instances to autonomously build a 100,000-line C compiler capable of compiling Linux across multiple architectures. The project demonstrated the ‘agent teams’ pattern — multiple LLM instances working simultaneously on a shared codebase with automated testing and synchronization, eliminating the need for continuous human supervision. Over approximately 2,000 sessions costing $20,000, the compiler achieved a 99% pass rate on test suites and successfully compiled major projects like QEMU and FFmpeg.
