An agentic workflow needs more than a model. It also needs approved context, tools, state, permissions, review points, and an operating owner.
Reviewing these layers separately helps your team find missing controls and unclear handoffs before the workflow reaches production.
The Core Layers
Model and Planning
Interprets the request, proposes steps, and uses tool results within the workflow's defined boundaries.
Context and State
Supplies approved knowledge and records the state needed to continue, pause, retry, or review a task.
Orchestration
Defines step order, handoffs, retries, timeouts, approvals, and exception paths.
Action Layer
Connects the workflow to approved APIs and business systems with scoped permissions and input validation.
Observability
Records the inputs, tool calls, handoffs, approvals, errors, and outcomes that operators need to review.
Governance
Sets access, data-use rules, review responsibilities, retention, and change approval for the workflow.
Why Stack Coherence Matters
Gaps between layers make errors harder to diagnose and changes harder to test. Define the interface and owner for each handoff, then test the full path with representative inputs and failures.
Treat an agentic workflow as operated software, not an isolated script.