The best agent workflow eventually stops looking agentic

An agent that plans, calls tools, and revises on every request is a sign that the procedure is still being found. Once the procedure is found, the loop is overhead. Extra latency, extra variance, extra places for a fluent mistake. The mature form is a workflow with a few explicit decisions and a person on the branches that still matter.

I do not mean the agent was a mistake. I mean it was scaffolding. Scaffolding that stays up after the building can stand is just in the way.

Where this fails is work that may never collapse. A problem you have not seen, a negotiation, a line of thought that is still open: those can stay agentic. The claim is only about workflows that have already stabilized, and about the reluctance to admit that they have.