Mid-level interview question
Name some workflow patterns you'd try before an agent.
Model answer
- Prompt chaining: fixed steps, with checks between.
- Routing: classify, then a specialised path.
- Parallelisation: independent parts at once, or voting on repeated runs.
- Orchestrator–workers: a model splits the task and delegates.
- Evaluator–optimiser: generate, critique, revise.
Scroll sideways to see the whole diagram
Prompt chaining: a fixed sequence of calls, each working on the last one's output. Code can check the output between steps.
Text version
- Prompt chaining: a fixed sequence of calls, each working on the last one's output. Code can check the output between steps.
- Routing: classify first, then send the input down a path built for its kind. Module 05's query routing is one example.
- Parallelisation: split a task into independent parts run at once (sectioning), or run the same task several times and combine the answers (voting).
- Orchestrator–workers: a model decides the subtasks at run time, so it's closer to an agent, but the structure around it is fixed.
- Evaluator–optimiser: generate, critique, revise. Anthropic notes it works when there are clear evaluation criteria and iteration measurably helps.
Practise the rest
6 Workflows vs agents questions, 492 in all, each with a model answer. Free.