Agentic Workflow Guide Skill

Agentic Workflow Guide

Design, review, and improve agent workflows based on proven principles.

When to Use

| Action | Triggers | | ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Create | New .agent.md, workflow architecture, scaffolding | | Review | Orchestrator not delegating, design principle check, context overflow | | Update | Adding Handoffs, improving delegation, tool configuration | | Debug | Agent not found, subagent not working, picker visibility, access control |

Core Principles

→ references/design-principles.md

| Tier | Principles | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Essential | SSOT, SRP, Simplicity First, Fail Fast, Feedback Loop | | Quality | Transparency, Gate/Checkpoint, DRY, Observability | | Scale | Human-in-the-Loop, Loose Coupling, Graceful Degradation |

's key recommendation.

Workflow Patterns

→ references/workflow-patterns/overview.md

| Pattern | When to Use | | ------------------------ | --------------------------------- | | Prompt Chaining | Sequential tasks with validation | | Routing | Processing varies by input type | | Parallelization | Independent tasks run together | | Orchestrator-Workers | Dynamic task decomposition | | Evaluator-Optimizer | Repeat until quality criteria met |

Stop Conditions (MANDATORY): Define success/failure criteria and exit conditions for every loop.

Design Workflow

Requirements - Goal, subtasks, dependencies, quality criteria
Pattern Selection - [!] Ask user to confirm pattern before proceeding
Design Diagram - Visualize with Mermaid
Principle Check - Validate against review checklist
Implement & Iterate - Build small → verify → improve

When to Escalate

→ references/splitting-criteria.md

| Level | Configuration | Escalation Triggers | | ------ | --------------------- | ---------------------------------------- | | L0 | Single Prompt | Retry 3+, unstable output | | L1 | Prompt + Instructions | Steps > 5, "missed/overlooked" errors | | L2 | Single Agent | Multiple responsibilities, context > 70% | | L3 | Multi-Agent | Independent subtasks needed |

Quick Check: Prompt > 50 lines? Steps > 5? SRP violation? Context > 70%? → Consider splitting.

Review Checklist

→ references/review-checklist.md

[ ] Single responsibility per agent? (SRP)
[ ] Errors detected immediately? (Fail Fast)
[ ] Small iterative steps? (Iterative)
[ ] Results verifiable at each step? (Feedback Loop)

Key References

| Topic | Reference | | ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Prompt Template | references/prompt-template.md | | agent | references/agent-guide.md | | Agent Template | references/agent-template.md | | Context Management | references/context-engineering.md | | Handoffs | references/handoffs-guide.md | | Scaffold Tool | references/scaffold-usage.md | | Deep Agent | references/deep-agent-patterns.md | | Agent Evaluation | references/agent-evaluation.md |

agent Quick Fix

Problem: Orchestrator says "I'll delegate" but does work directly.

Solution: Use MUST/MANDATORY language. See agent-guide.md.

## MANDATORY: Sub-agent Delegation
You MUST use agent for each file. Do NOT read files directly.

Tools Reference

→ references/agent-template.md

| Purpose | VS Code Copilot | Claude Code | | --------- | ------------------------ | ----------- | | Shell | execute/runInTerminal | Bash | | Read | read/readFile | Read | | Edit | edit/editFiles | Write | | Subagent | agent | Task | | Web fetch | web/fetch | (MCP) |

Agent Skills: Agentic Workflow Guide

Install this agent skill to your local

Skill Files