AWS patterns for async agent calls in serverless pipelines
AWS ML Blog · rss · 2026-08-20
Synchronously invoking AI agents in serverless pipelines causes the caller (e.g., Lambda) to idle and incur costs while the agent "thinks." AWS compares four patterns, focusing on three asynchronous approaches to eliminate this waste:
- Task-Token Callback: Uses Step Functions waitForTaskToken; the agent calls back to resume execution.
- Direct Service Integration: Uses Step Functions' optimized integration for AgentCore Harness, removing the intermediate Lambda entirely.
- Durable Function: The agent resumes execution via a callback ID.
The article notes that while agents only bill for memory during idle waits, compute services like Lambda bill for full allocation while blocked. Async patterns reduce caller billing from the full processing duration to milliseconds.
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