AI EngineeringInterview preparation
Advanced·Concept·2 min read

Should this be a workflow?

Practice this question
  • Yes when steps depend on durable business state, external events, review, timers, compensation, or repeated retries.
  • Distinguish conversational agent state from the canonical business process.
  • Choose a queue for independent jobs and a durable workflow platform for long-lived coordination when required.

Example: AI drafts claim fields; deterministic workflow validates, waits for exact approval, submits idempotently, and notifies through an outbox.

Adapted from 13_AI.MD · “6. Should this be a workflow?”. Code examples are study fragments. Difficulty and core labels are editorial estimates; version-specific behavior should be checked against your project.