Parallel Batch Executor

When to Use This Skill

✅ Use when:

• Processing multiple independent files or items
• Running the same operation across multiple repositories
• Batch operations that don't depend on each other
• Need significant performance improvements
• Operations are I/O bound rather than CPU bound

❌ Avoid when:

• Tasks have dependencies on each other
• Order of execution matters
• Shared resources require synchronization
• Single task that can't be parallelized

Complete Example: Batch Task Runner

Full implementation from workspace-hub:

#!/bin/bash
# ABOUTME: Batch Task Executor
# ABOUTME: Executes tasks in parallel using the Multi-Provider Orchestrator

set -e

# ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
# Configuration
# ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd)"
ORCHESTRATOR="$SCRIPT_DIR/../routing/orchestrate.sh"
PARALLEL=1
LOG_DIR="$SCRIPT_DIR/logs"

# Colors
RED='\033[0;31m'
GREEN='\033[0;32m'
YELLOW='\033[1;33m'
CYAN='\033[0;36m'
NC='\033[0m'


*See sub-skills for full details.*

## Performance Tuning

### Optimal Parallelism

```bash
# CPU-bound tasks: match CPU cores
PARALLEL=$(nproc)

# I/O-bound tasks: 2-4x CPU cores
PARALLEL=$(($(nproc) * 2))

# Network-bound tasks: higher parallelism
PARALLEL=20

# Memory-constrained: limit based on available RAM
AVAILABLE_MB=$(free -m | awk '/^Mem:/{print $7}')
TASK_MB=100  # Estimate per task
PARALLEL=$((AVAILABLE_MB / TASK_MB))

Throttling

# Add delay between task starts
printf '%s\n' "${items[@]}" | xargs -I {} -P "$PARALLEL" bash -c "
    sleep 0.1  # 100ms delay
    process_item \"{}\"
"

Resources

• GNU xargs Manual
• GNU Parallel Tutorial
• Bash Process Substitution

Version History

• 1.0.0 (2026-01-14): Initial release - extracted from workspace-hub batchtools

Sub-Skills

• 1. Basic Parallel Execution with xargs (+2)
• 4. Progress Tracking (+2)
• 1. Always Set a Default (+4)