Agentic Workflow

Definition

An Agentic Workflow is a multi-step automated process where an LLM orchestrates tools, memory, and reasoning to complete complex tasks that require dynamic decision-making. Unlike fixed pipelines where each step is pre-determined, an agentic workflow allows the model to decide at runtime what steps are needed, in what order, and with what inputs—adapting the execution path based on intermediate results. This makes agentic workflows suitable for tasks that are too variable or complex for traditional rule-based automation.

Engineering Context

Agentic workflows differ from simple LLM calls in that the model determines the sequence of operations dynamically. This introduces planning, tool selection, and error recovery as first-class engineering concerns. LangGraph and similar frameworks provide the state management infrastructure for reliable agentic workflows, enabling teams to define explicit checkpoints, retry policies, and branching logic. In production, agentic workflows require careful observability: each LLM call, tool invocation, and state transition should be logged with timestamps and token counts so that failures can be diagnosed and costs attributed accurately.

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