Agentic Workflows

Agentic workflows are structured execution pipelines in which AI agents autonomously plan, execute, and iterate on multi-step tasks. Unlike single-turn prompt-response interactions, agentic workflows involve agents that maintain state, use external tools, evaluate their own outputs, and adapt their approach based on intermediate results.

Within the Agentic Development Handbook framework, agentic workflows operate inside the Continuous Development Loop — a recurring cycle in which specifications are authored, agents execute against them, outputs are evaluated, and results feed back into the next iteration. This loop replaces the traditional write-review-deploy pipeline with a Spec Driven Development model where Live Spec documents serve as the primary input and the Eval Harness provides automated validation.

Core Capabilities

1. Planning and Decomposition. Agents break complex tasks into ordered subtasks, determine dependencies between them, and create execution plans. In a governed workflow, these plans are constrained by the scope boundaries defined in the Live Spec.

2. Tool Use. Agents interact with external systems — file systems, APIs, databases, build tools, test runners — to gather information and take action. Tool access is scoped by the agent's assigned permissions and the platform configuration.

3. Context Management. Agents consume context from Context Packet documents, maintain working memory across execution steps, and reference project-level standards. Effective context management is the primary determinant of output quality, consistent with the handbook principle that context is the bottleneck.

4. Self-Evaluation and Iteration. Agents assess their own outputs against acceptance criteria, identify errors or incomplete work, and retry with adjusted approaches. This self-evaluation loop operates within the broader Eval Harness validation pipeline.

5. Multi-Agent Coordination. Complex workflows may distribute subtasks across specialized agents. Coordination patterns include sequential handoffs, parallel execution with merge points, and hierarchical delegation where an orchestrator agent assigns and reviews sub-agent work.

Workflow Patterns

Common patterns for structuring agentic workflows include:

• ReAct (Reasoning + Acting) — Agents alternate between reasoning about the next step and taking action, producing an interpretable trace of decisions.
• Plan-and-Execute — An agent generates a full plan upfront, then executes each step sequentially, adjusting the plan when steps fail.
• Triangular Workflow — The Specify-Execute-Evaluate cycle from Spec Driven Development, where the specification constrains execution and the eval harness validates output.
• Continuous Development Loop — The Continuous Development Loop extends the Triangular Workflow into a recurring team-level cadence with ceremonies, queue management, and governance gates.

Governance

In Agentic Engineering practice, agentic workflows do not operate without oversight. Governance is embedded through gate checkpoints where human review is required before work advances. The Eval Harness provides automated first-pass validation, and human operators review exceptions, architectural decisions, and high-risk changes. This ensures that increased agent autonomy does not come at the cost of reduced accountability.