A software development platform builds a multi-agent code review system where an orchestrator decomposes a pull request into sub-tasks (security review, performance review, style review) and spawns specialized subagents for each. The orchestrator then synthesizes findings. The team notices that subagents occasionally produce contradictory findings — e.g., the security agent recommends adding input validation, while the style agent recommends simplifying the validation logic it doesn't realize is security-critical. How should the MCP-based orchestration protocol handle conflicting subagent outputs?

Semantic conflict detection and explicit synthesis is the architecturally correct approach. The orchestrator has full context from all subagents and can identify when agents are reasoning about the same code from different perspectives. Surfacing conflicts explicitly in the synthesis prompt — 'Security agent recommends X for reason R1; Style agent recommends Y for reason R2; these are in conflict' — allows the synthesis Claude to reason holistically about the tradeoff. Often the resolution requires domain expertise that neither specialized agent has alone (e.g., 'the security validation is complex but necessary; simplify the surrounding non-security code instead'). Option A (sequential) allows agents to see prior findings but eliminates parallel execution benefits and introduces ordering bias — style may defer to security rather than independently assess. Option C (majority voting) fails for specialist disagreements where the minority may be correct (1 security agent vs. 2 style agents). Option D (fixed priority) eliminates nuanced tradeoffs — sometimes style concerns legitimately override security paranoia when risk is negligible.