Definition
What is workflow orchestration?
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Definition
Orchestration is the coordination of multiple services, tools, or steps into a single coherent workflow — handling sequencing, retries, conditional branches, and state across the workflow's lifetime.
Orchestration is what turns a collection of API calls and LLM calls into a reliable, observable agent. Frameworks like LangGraph, Temporal, and Apache Airflow all solve different shapes of orchestration. For AI agents specifically, the orchestration layer must handle LLM-driven branching (the agent decides what to do next), persistent state across long-running workflows, and human-in-the-loop interrupts.
AI orchestration vs traditional workflow orchestration
Airflow and Temporal handle deterministic workflows where the next step is known at design time. LangGraph adds the missing piece for agents: the next step is decided at runtime by an LLM, and the framework persists state across that decision.
Why orchestration matters in production
Without it, every agent reinvents retries, state persistence, observability, and HITL — usually with bugs that show up at 3am. With it, the agent’s logic is just the nodes.