agent-workflow-designer

SKILL.md

Agent Workflow Designer

Tier: POWERFUL

Category: Engineering

Domain: Multi-Agent Systems / AI Orchestration

Overview

Design production-grade multi-agent workflows with clear pattern choice, handoff contracts, failure handling, and cost/context controls.

Core Capabilities

Workflow pattern selection for multi-step agent systems

Skeleton config generation for fast workflow bootstrapping

Context and cost discipline across long-running flows

Error recovery and retry strategy scaffolding

Documentation pointers for operational pattern tradeoffs

When to Use

A single prompt is insufficient for task complexity

You need specialist agents with explicit boundaries

You want deterministic workflow structure before implementation

You need validation loops for quality or safety gates

Quick Start

# Generate a sequential workflow skeleton
python3 scripts/workflow_scaffolder.py sequential --name content-pipeline

# Generate an orchestrator workflow and save it
python3 scripts/workflow_scaffolder.py orchestrator --name incident-triage --output workflows/incident-triage.json

Pattern Map

sequential: strict step-by-step dependency chain

parallel: fan-out/fan-in for independent subtasks

router: dispatch by intent/type with fallback

orchestrator: planner coordinates specialists with dependencies

evaluator: generator + quality gate loop

Detailed templates: references/workflow-patterns.md

Recommended Workflow

Select pattern based on dependency shape and risk profile.

Scaffold config via scripts/workflow_scaffolder.py.

Define handoff contract fields for every edge.

Add retry/timeouts and output validation gates.

Dry-run with small context budgets before scaling.

Common Pitfalls

Over-orchestrating tasks solvable by one well-structured prompt

Missing timeout/retry policies for external-model calls

Passing full upstream context instead of targeted artifacts

Ignoring per-step cost accumulation

Best Practices

Start with the smallest pattern that can satisfy requirements.

Keep handoff payloads explicit and bounded.

Validate intermediate outputs before fan-in synthesis.

Enforce budget and timeout limits in every step.