Agentic Workflow Guide

Design, review, and improve agent workflows based on proven principles.

When to Use

Action	Triggers
Create	New `.agent.md`, workflow architecture, scaffolding
Review	Orchestrator not delegating, design principle check, context overflow
Update	Adding Handoffs, improving delegation, tool configuration
Debug	Agent not found, subagent not working, picker visibility, access control

Tier	Principles
Essential	SSOT, SRP, Simplicity First, Fail Fast, Feedback Loop
Quality	Transparency, Gate/Checkpoint, DRY, Observability
Scale	Human-in-the-Loop, Loose Coupling, Graceful Degradation

See design-principles.md > Simplicity First for Anthropic's key recommendation.

Pattern	When to Use
Prompt Chaining	Sequential tasks with validation
Routing	Processing varies by input type
Parallelization	Independent tasks run together
Orchestrator-Workers	Dynamic task decomposition
Evaluator-Optimizer	Repeat until quality criteria met

Stop Conditions (MANDATORY): Define success/failure criteria and exit conditions for every loop.

Level	Configuration	Escalation Triggers
L0	Single Prompt	Retry 3+, unstable output
L1	Prompt + Instructions	Steps > 5, "missed/overlooked" errors
L2	Single Agent	Multiple responsibilities, context > 70%
L3	Multi-Agent	Independent subtasks needed

Quick Check: Prompt > 50 lines? Steps > 5? SRP violation? Context > 70%? → Consider splitting.

Topic	Reference
Prompt Template	references/prompt-template.md
agent	references/agent-guide.md
Agent Template	references/agent-template.md
Context Management	references/context-engineering.md
Handoffs	references/handoffs-guide.md
Scaffold Tool	references/scaffold-usage.md
Deep Agent	references/deep-agent-patterns.md
Agent Evaluation	references/agent-evaluation.md

Problem: Orchestrator says "I'll delegate" but does work directly.

Solution: Use MUST/MANDATORY language. See agent-guide.md.

## MANDATORY: Sub-agent Delegation
You MUST use agent for each file. Do NOT read files directly.