PRODUCTION SCENARIO
A city permit portal validates the required fields on an application, looks up the parcel record, then computes the fee. Every application goes through all three steps in that order, the order is known before the request arrives, and the fee calculation reads the zoning class that comes back with the parcel record. The portal handles about 40,000 applications a day and the city's auditors have to be able to read the sequence off the source.
Which design is most appropriate?
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Show answer and explanation
Answer: Orchestrate the three steps in code, gating each on the previous step having passed
The sequence is fixed and fully known before the request arrives, so it belongs in code, and each gate makes the next step's precondition true on every one of the 40,000 daily applications rather than usually. Running the three concurrently is the right shape when the steps are independent, but the fee reads the zoning class that arrives with the parcel record, so it cannot start first. Letting the agent choose and rejecting bad orderings afterwards is right when the order depends on the request and cannot be written down in advance. Prompting one agent through the steps suits a sequence that is advisory, and a validator on the output leaves the ordering to chance on each request.
Official Source: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/building-effective-agents ↗