Lesson 1 · 6 min
Agent vs. Workflow
When to give Claude autonomy vs. when to pin a fixed sequence.
An agent decides which tool to call next based on a goal. A workflow pins the order of tool calls in code. Pick a workflow when the steps are known and stable; pick an agent when the path branches on data the LLM only sees at runtime.
*Default:* start with a workflow, promote to an agent only when you hit a step that requires LLM judgement to route.
Quick check
Agentic ArchitectureSelect one
Your team has a stable 4-step data pipeline (extract → validate → transform → load) and the steps never branch based on data content. Which approach is most appropriate?