Is it following a recipe, or choosing its next action?
Agents and workflows
A workflow follows a designed sequence. An agentic system gives a model some control over which steps and tools to use. Products use these labels differently.
An everyday example
A fixed process extracts invoice fields and asks for approval. An agent may choose which files to search and which tool to call next.
Original illustration, not an observed participant case.
Where the idea stops
More autonomy is not automatically more useful. It can add cost, uncertainty and opportunities for unauthorized action.
Something to try
Identify the goal, available tools, stop condition, spending limit and approval boundary before delegating a task.
Practise on a fictional case →Go deeper: the builder’s view
For builders: begin with the simplest workable sequence. Add autonomy only where measured benefits exceed checking, recovery and maintenance costs.
Source and interpretation
This is a plain-language interpretation with an applied example; it is not a quotation or an endorsement from the source.
Anthropic — Building Effective Agents (one architectural convention) (2024) ↗Catalog v0.1 · checked 2026-10-29