> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sirenspec.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Telephone Game

> Five agents relay a message in sequence — each rewriting only what it received. Watch semantic drift accumulate across hops.

A chain of five agents where each reads only the previous agent's output, never the original prompt. Compare the final output to the starting message to measure how much (or how little) meaning drifted across five hops.

## What it demonstrates

* Long sequential chains and accumulated `working.*` context
* Why careful `writes:` path design matters — each hop is traceable
* How meaning degrades (or holds) under repeated paraphrase
* Reusing the same agent definition across multiple nodes

## Run it

```bash theme={null}
sirenspec run docs/cookbook/telephone-game/workflow.yaml
# Try your own starting message:
sirenspec run docs/cookbook/telephone-game/workflow.yaml \
  --input "A short, fact-dense sentence of your choice."
```

Compare `working.hop_1` through `working.hop_4` against `output.final` in the trace to see drift at each step.

## Workflow

```yaml docs/cookbook/telephone-game/workflow.yaml theme={null}
version: "0.1"

agents:
  relay:
    model: "openai:gpt-4o-mini"
    system: |
      You will receive a message. Restate it in your own words — change the
      phrasing, sentence structure, and vocabulary completely, but preserve
      the core meaning. Do not add, remove, or invent any facts. Reply with
      only the restated message, nothing else.

nodes:
  hop_1:
    agent: relay
    writes: working.hop_1
  hop_2:
    agent: relay
    writes: working.hop_2
  hop_3:
    agent: relay
    writes: working.hop_3
  hop_4:
    agent: relay
    writes: working.hop_4
  hop_5:
    agent: relay
    writes: output.final

edges:
  - from: hop_1
    to: hop_2
  - from: hop_2
    to: hop_3
  - from: hop_3
    to: hop_4
  - from: hop_4
    to: hop_5

guardrails:
  - injection
  - length
```

## Graph

```mermaid theme={null}
graph TD
    hop_1[hop_1]
    hop_2[hop_2]
    hop_3[hop_3]
    hop_4[hop_4]
    hop_5[hop_5]
    hop_1 --> hop_2
    hop_2 --> hop_3
    hop_3 --> hop_4
    hop_4 --> hop_5
```

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Compression Gauntlet" href="/cookbook/compression-gauntlet/README">
    A chain that halves the text each step — how much can survive?
  </Card>

  <Card title="Sequential Pipeline" href="/cookbook/sequential-pipeline/README">
    The two-node version of this pattern.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>