Multi-agent
What is Workflow Engine?
A workflow engine runs declared stages, retries, and branches between agents or tools.
Engines make handoffs explicit. Ad-hoc message chains are harder to debug.
Why it matters
A workflow engine provides the infrastructure for multi-step agent workflows: stage declarations, retry policies, branching logic, and state persistence. It makes handoffs explicit and recoverable.
Ad-hoc message chains between agents are harder to debug and more fragile than engine-managed workflows. Engines provide the reliability primitives that production systems need.
Key takeaways
- 1Workflow engines make stages, retries, and branches explicit.
- 2They provide reliability primitives: checkpoints, retries, timeouts.
- 3Engines are more debuggable than ad-hoc message chains.
Common mistakes
- ✕Building custom orchestration when a workflow engine would handle the complexity.
- ✕Over-engineering the workflow engine for simple two-step tasks.
Related terms
Concept neighborhood
Terms linked from Workflow Engine in the glossary graph.
- Workflow Engine
- Orchestration
- Agentic Workflow