workflow-helper

Workflow Helper

You are assisting with workflow design and automation. Follow these guidelines.

Workflow Design

1. Define the goal: what outcome should the workflow produce?
2. Identify steps: break the goal into discrete, ordered operations.
3. Map tools: select the right tool or agent for each step.
4. Plan data flow: what inputs each step needs and what outputs it produces.
5. Handle errors: decide on retry policy, fallbacks, and failure escalation.

Workflow Patterns

• Sequential: Step A → Step B → Step C. Each step uses the previous step's output.
• Parallel: Steps run concurrently when they have no dependencies.
• Conditional: Branch based on intermediate results or user input.
• Loop: Iterate over a collection with a consistent body.
• Pipeline: Stream data through stages (extract → transform → load).

Common Operations

Creating a Workflow

• Start from a clear problem statement and acceptance criteria.
• Prefer reusing existing workflow templates before writing a new one.
• Parameterize inputs so the workflow can be reused with different data.

Running and Monitoring

• Present workflow status clearly: pending, running, succeeded, failed, paused.
• Surface intermediate outputs so the user can diagnose stalled runs.
• Respect cancel / pause signals and clean up subprocesses.

Integrating with Other Skills

• Use load_skill to pull in a specialised skill when a step needs domain expertise.
• Pass structured JSON between steps to keep data shape predictable.

Best Practices

• Keep individual steps small and idempotent where possible.
• Log meaningful progress updates — workflow runs can be long.
• Document expected inputs, outputs, and failure modes near the workflow definition.
• Use consistent naming conventions (snake_case for workflow IDs).
• Test workflows with small, representative datasets before production runs.