A single agent can do a lot. But the broader the task, the more tokens it burns reasoning about what to do next. Workflows fix that.
A workflow chains agents together. Each step has a narrow job, so there's less room for the agent to go off track. Three cheap agents working in sequence beat one expensive agent trying to do everything.
The concept: specialists, not generalists
Say you need a competitive analysis report. One approach: throw it at a single powerful model and hope for the best. Better approach: three Haiku agents, each focused on one job.
- Research agent gathers raw data using web search
- Analysis agent identifies patterns and scores competitors
- Report agent formats findings into a structured deliverable
Each agent is simple, focused, and cheap. The workflow coordinates them.
Build it
The fastest path: go to Create and describe the whole job. "Research competitors, analyze their pricing, and write a report." Svortie builds the agents and workflow for you.
Or build it manually: go to Workflows and click New workflow. Give it a name and description, then you're in the canvas editor.
The editor shows your workflow as a visual pipeline. Start node on the left, end node on the right. Click + to insert steps at any position.
For each step, pick an existing agent or create one inline. Set a task override per step so the same agent can behave differently depending on where it sits in the workflow.
Step-by-step
Step 1: Add a research agent. Click +, select your research agent (or create one inline). Give it a task override like: "Research the top 5 competitors in the CRM space. Focus on pricing, features, and recent funding."
Step 2: Add an analysis agent. Click + after the research step. Pick an analysis-focused agent. Task override: "Analyze the research data. Score each competitor on pricing competitiveness, feature breadth, and market momentum. Output a ranked table."
Step 3: Add a report agent. Click + again. Pick a writing agent. Task override: "Write a 2-page competitive analysis report using the analysis. Include an executive summary, detailed comparison table, and recommendations."
Run the workflow
Hit Run. Each step executes in order. You can watch the logs for each step in real time by clicking on the step nodes.
The workflow passes context between steps automatically. Step 2 sees everything step 1 produced. Step 3 sees everything from steps 1 and 2.
Passing files between steps
If your agents produce files (CSVs, PDFs, reports), workflows use
shared volumes. Every step in a workflow can read from and write to
/home/daytona/shared/. Step 1 writes a spreadsheet there, step 2
reads and processes it, step 3 generates a final report.
No manual file passing. No copy-paste between runs.
Cost advantage
Three Haiku agents in a workflow typically cost less than one Sonnet agent doing the same job, and produce better results because each step is focused. Check the cost breakdown post for the math.
What's next
- Add scheduling to run workflows automatically
- Attach playbooks to individual steps for quality control
- Use file uploads to feed data into the first step