Workflow patterns

Many production systems are workflows with fixed code paths that call LLMs, not free-roaming agents. Pick the simplest pattern that works.

Stable: this rarely changes. Reviewed 17 Oct 2026.

Key ideas

• Prompt chaining: fixed sequence of LLM steps with checks between them.
• Routing: classify the input, send it to a specialised prompt or model.
• Parallelisation: run sections or votes in parallel and aggregate.
• Orchestrator-workers: a lead model splits a task and delegates sub-tasks dynamically.
• Evaluator-optimiser: one model generates, another critiques, loop until it passes.
• Move up to full autonomy only when the path genuinely cannot be predicted.

Go deeper

• Building effective agents (Anthropic)