Writing 80-to-100 Validated Workflows

Writing 80-to-100 Validated Workflows

Overview

Most agent workflows get features to ~80%: code written, types check, maybe a build passes. This skill covers the 80-to-100 gap — making workflows that fully validate features end-to-end before committing. The goal: every feature merged via these workflows is tested, verified, and known-working, not just "it compiles."

When to Use

• Writing workflows where the deliverable must be production-ready, not just code-complete
• Features that touch databases, APIs, or infrastructure that can be tested locally
• Any workflow where "it compiles" is not sufficient proof of correctness
• When you want confidence that the commit actually works before deploying

Core Principle: Test In The Workflow

The key insight: run tests as deterministic steps inside the workflow itself. Don't just write test files — execute them, verify they pass, fix failures, and re-run. The workflow doesn't commit until tests are green.

implement → write tests → run tests → fix failures → re-run → build check → regression check → commit

This means the commit at the end of the workflow represents code that is proven working, not just code that an agent wrote and claimed works.

Repair Before Failure

An 80-to-100 workflow should not stop merely because a test, typecheck, lint, schema, or E2E gate turns red. That red output is work for the agent team. Capture it, hand it to a repair owner, fix it, and rerun. Workflow-owned validation gates should never terminate the run with FAILED. If the team exhausts its repair budget or hits an external blocker such as missing credentials, wrong repository, or unsafe dirty worktree, write a BLOCKED_NO_COMMIT artifact and end without committing or opening a PR instead of crashing the workflow.

Use this shape for every meaningful gate:

1. run-*: deterministic command with captureOutput: true and failOnError: false.
2. fix-*: agent step that reads {{steps.run-*.output}}, fixes source/tests/config, and reruns the command locally until green.
3. verify-*: deterministic rerun, usually still failOnError: false, followed by a final repair step if red.
4. commit-if-green: deterministic step that reruns the full acceptance command and commits only when every exit code is zero. If anything is still red, it writes BLOCKED_NO_COMMIT with the failing evidence and exits successfully so the workflow reports a handled blocked state, not a runtime failure.

AgentWorkforce/relay#827 added repair-aware reliability to the SDK (.reliable() / .repairable() and repair-aware retry-mode workflows). Prefer those presets when available, but still model explicit repair owners when gate output needs domain-specific fixing.

Keep Repairable Gates On The Critical Path

Repair-before-failure only works after the workflow reaches a deterministic gate. If a long-running interactive agent step is a hard dependency for the first gate, then a dropped PTY, agent spawn error, or transport failure can stop the workflow before the repair loop ever sees evidence.