Orchestration - Workflow vs. Autonomous Agent

Workflow – a deterministic path defined by code: strict control and safety, but no flexibility. Autonomous agent – the path is shaped dynamically by environmental feedback: flexible, but more expensive and risky. Principle of choice: first try to solve with a prompt; if multi-step processing with fixed subtasks is needed – workflow; only when dynamic decisions are required – autonomous agent. In practice, both patterns are often mixed.

Related: [Harness-engineering], [ReAct loop], [Guardrails]