WorkfloworAgent
In a workflow, the sequence of steps is written in advance by a person: a model may fill one box, it does not choose the next box. In an agent, the plan does not exist before the run, because it is the model that observes the state of the work and decides, turn after turn, what it does next.
Point by point
| Criterion | Floor 3Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereWorkflow | Floor 3Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereAgent |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes the sequence | A person, before the run | The model, during the run |
| The same case, twice | Same path, same result | Two paths that may diverge |
| Cost of one run | Known before launching | Known afterwards, unless you capped it |
| When it fails | The faulty step names itself | You must first rebuild the path taken |
| A case nobody foresaw | It falls outside the plan | It is handled, well or badly |
| Where the effort goes | Writing and maintaining the branches | Evaluating, tracing, framing what cannot be foreseen |
On the ground four situations
Every time an employee joins: open the accounts, send the handbook, book three meetings, notify the mentor.
Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereWorkflowThe list is the same for everyone and can be read before the run. There is nothing to decide along the way.
An outage in production: read the logs, form a hypothesis, check it, form another one when it falls, until the cause is found.
Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereAgentThe second step depends on what the first revealed. The plan cannot be written beforehand, only unfold.
A process presented as agentic: the model reads the incoming request, files it in one of the four planned categories, and each category triggers its own sequence of steps.
Floor 3 · The Agentthe block caught in a loop: it starts again until it gets thereWorkflowThe useful counter-example: the model decides, but between options written in advance. The plan has not moved, this is a workflow with one step handed to a model.
A fixed document chain, receive, extract, check, archive, in which a single step searches freely for the missing pieces until it finds them or gives up.
BothBoth, nested: a workflow one of whose steps is an agent. It is the most common shape in production, and naming it is worth more than picking a side.
The test that settles it
Ask for the plan before launching. If someone can show you the list of steps and branches, including those that will not be used today, it is a workflow. If the only honest answer is “that will depend on what it finds”, it is an agent.
The trap
“We have moved to an agent, it is more modern.” An agent is not the evolved version of a workflow: they are two ways of organising the same work, and one trades predictability for adaptation. When you know how to write the steps, writing them costs less, is easier to monitor and holds up in front of an auditor.
Check click your answer
Level 1 · Recognise
You want to know the cost of a run before launching it. In which case is that possible?
Level 2 · Distinguish
An auditor will ask you, for a given file, which steps were followed and why. What does that change between a workflow and an agent?
Level 2 · Distinguish
An agentic prototype succeeds one time in two, and you notice that the successful tasks almost always follow the same sequence. What do you do?