AI agent, AI workflow, or automation: which should you choose in 2026?
Choose between automation, an AI workflow, an agentic workflow, and a bounded autonomous agent based on who picks the next step, cost, latency, and risk.
13 min read
An AI agent workflow defines how work moves between roles. It specifies inputs, deliverables, decisions and exit conditions. A supervisor follows that work and chooses the next action within an agreed mandate.
Start with the outcome and its acceptance criteria, then add the roles needed to produce and inspect it. Eight agents are not an improvement when they create more communication without a more useful result.
What the supervisor and workflow each provide
The supervisor needs to know what can start, what is missing and who can perform the work. It delegates contributions, follows dependencies and examines results. Its mandate defines the decisions it can take and those that belong to a person.
A workflow describes a reusable circuit: produce, verify, correct and accept. A condition can route a result to another step. A loop can trigger a correction. An approval can pause the circuit until a human decision arrives.
In Stellary, project coordination organizes cards and contributors under a mandate. Workflows define steps and outputs. A coordinated project can use a workflow to handle a contribution.
Choose roles from the work
Scroll to read all columns
| Role | Responsibility | Handoff output |
|---|---|---|
| Supervisor | Assign, follow and select the next work | Missions, dependencies and open questions |
| Explorer | Find credible approaches | Sourced options and uncertainty |
| Researcher | Test a hypothesis | Reproducible protocol and result |
| Creator | Produce the requested artifact | Code, document, design or another deliverable |
| Verifier | Inspect criteria independently | Evidence and localized discrepancies |
| Corrector | Resolve confirmed discrepancies | Targeted correction and another check |
| Decision agent | Compare against the mandate's criteria | Reasoned choice or a question for the owner |
| Optimizer | Improve an already correct result | Before-and-after comparison |
These roles can represent separate agents, several missions assigned to one agent or human contributions. Separation is especially useful when independent review changes confidence in the result.
Anthropic's multiagent orchestration documentation describes several delegation patterns too. Implementation details belong to that provider; Stellary workflows need their own checks of the selected execution engine and available tools.
Define a contract for every handoff
A useful mission describes the outcome, sources, permitted actions, protected scope and completion evidence. The next step should be able to use its deliverable without replaying a lengthy conversation.
An exploration mission could return three comparable options, their sources and reasons to reject or test them. An implementation returns an identifiable change and executed checks. A review returns inspected criteria and observed discrepancies.
Instructions such as “help the other agent” leave responsibility, access and completion undefined. Clear contracts reduce ambiguity before a supervisor has to resolve it during execution.
A creation and review workflow
Frame
The pilot connects the objective, criteria and sources to a card.
Explore
An agent compares approaches and identifies unknowns that affect the choice.
Create
The executor produces the deliverable within its authorized scope.
Verify
A different contributor inspects the result and acceptance criteria.
Correct or accept
Confirmed discrepancies return for correction; a satisfactory review permits the planned next step.
Exploration is unnecessary for some known tasks. Optimization should not precede a functional fix. Defined conditions can bypass a step that adds no value to the current mission.
For a complete application, review needs to cover the user journey and stored data. For a project report, factual accuracy, sources and actual decisions come first.
Give the verifier and decision agent explicit criteria
A verifier should open the deliverable and connect each criterion to observable evidence. A quality score can help route a workflow, but it does not replace the reasons behind the score.
A decision agent then compares options against agreed criteria. For a feature, these may include correctness, integration effort and contract preservation. For research, they may include source quality, experimental results and uncertainty.
When the tradeoff exceeds the mandate, return a focused question. Deciding whether to retain a feature at the cost of a delay belongs to the owner of that commitment. A decision role does not grant general authority over the project.
Design useful correction loops
A correction loop passes the discrepancies, context and verification method. The corrector needs to know what failed and what may change. Otherwise it can redo too much work or address a different symptom.
After repeated similar failures, change the strategy, executor, input or inconsistent criterion. Repeating the same mission with the same message is not progress. Stellary's project piloting requires a different strategy or reassignment after two unsuccessful corrections with the same strategy and executor.
A question can suspend the affected branch while independent work continues once its prerequisites are satisfied. Explicit waiting differs from a loop that consumes calls without acquiring any new information.
Run agents in parallel where the work allows it
Parallel work helps when contributions do not interfere. Two explorers can inspect different sources. Two developers changing the same contract need to agree on that contract first.
Stellary coordination can reserve shared write resources and serialize work on a common repository. Ask which contributions are actually independent before deciding how many agents to launch.
Define an integration order and inspect the combined outcome. Contributions that pass separately may still fail together. The coordination guide covers ownership and collision handling.
Select models and tools per mission
A short extraction and a difficult code investigation need different capabilities. The current coding-model guide provides candidates to evaluate. Measure the cost of an accepted result, including retries and review.
A local model may suit some steps. Verify tool use in the selected execution engine. A model that generates good prose is not automatically able to complete an agent workflow under the intended permissions.
Test the workflow before reusing it
Run the successful path, an incorrect result, a missing source and a question requiring a human answer. Inspect where the circuit stops, what it preserves and how it resumes.
Keep each step's deliverable and a readable timeline. Someone should be able to explain why the outcome was accepted and which correction made it acceptable. In a research workflow, retain rejected hypotheses and negative results too.
Start with a creator and verifier, then add roles whose value appears in actual trials. A workflow becomes reusable when the team understands its inputs, failures and completion conditions.
Define the input and output of each condition
If a condition routes work to correction, specify the value it reads. A structured “criteria satisfied” output needs an explicit instruction and supporting review evidence. Missing data should produce a readable error or waiting state instead of implicit acceptance.
Stellary steps can expose typed output variables for conditions. Keep their names and meaning stable. Changing a value’s meaning without reviewing downstream branches can send an otherwise plausible output to the wrong next step.
Keep an owner for the combined outcome
The supervisor should identify which artifact represents the integrated result. Several successful files or responses do not necessarily form one usable delivery. For a report, inspect consistency across facts; for an application, repeat the complete journey; for research, connect the decision to the experiments.
Final review applies to that combined version. If a correction changes something already checked, revisit the affected criteria. Step history helps distinguish evidence that remains valid from checks that need repeating.
Reuse the workflow without freezing the project
A reusable circuit should keep stable responsibilities while allowing mission-specific sources and criteria. Avoid embedding one project’s temporary decision into a workflow used by every team. Pass that decision through the current mission context instead.
When a workflow changes, test both the normal path and branches affected by the change. Preserve enough version information to interpret existing runs. A team should be able to explain why an older result followed a different path without silently rewriting its history.
Set up this workflow in Stellary
The orchestration page describes the product setup and the agents guide the settings to check. Start with one card, one implementer and one reviewer. The first handoff succeeds when the reviewer can find the deliverable, replay the acceptance check and request a correction without rebuilding the context.
This scenario is a recipe to adapt. The example alone establishes no time saving or level of autonomy.
