Not Everything Needs an Agent: Fixed Steps Are Recipes, Save Agents for Judgment
adamse · x · 2026-10-28
A retweeted take argues for a simple engineering test: if the steps never change, it's a recipe — ship it in a workflow tool like Workato and move on.
Key points:
- Reserve agents for the part where actual judgment happens, not predictable fixed pipelines
- Using an agent to run what is essentially an if statement means paying token costs for deterministic code
A pragmatic pushback against the current agent-everything hype: classify the process first, then choose automation vs. agent.
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