Routing and Orchestration Patterns

Routing decides what starts a run and who should handle it. Orchestration decides what happens after the run starts. A simple mental model:

• Deployments bring work in.
• Agents handle or delegate.
• Workflows control known steps.
• Runbooks guide flexible procedures.
• Guardrails route risky situations to humans.
• Runs show what happened.

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Pattern 1: Route at the Deployment

Use deployment routing when the channel, event, group, tag, webhook, or schedule already tells Duckie what should happen. Examples:

• Zendesk new ticket in a billing group starts a Billing Agent.
• Slack mention in a support channel starts a Support Agent.
• A custom webhook from an internal system starts an intake workflow.
• A scheduler starts a reporting agent every weekday morning.

This keeps the entry point simple and makes ownership clear before the run begins.

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Pattern 2: Use a Workflow Backbone

Use workflows for repeatable routing, required checks, approvals, retries, and exact tool order. Keep known process state in the workflow. Call agents only where judgment, language, research, or specialist review is needed. Examples:

• Refund eligibility: look up order, check policy, respond or escalate.
• Case intake: validate required fields, classify, route missing data to enrichment.
• Sensitive account update: verify the account, branch to approval, then update.

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Pattern 3: Let an Autonomous Agent Choose the Path

Use autonomous agents when requests vary and Duckie needs to choose knowledge, runbooks, workflows, tools, or sub-agents. This works well for broad support, triage, research-heavy questions, and multi-topic conversations. Keep the agent’s scope clear with Tools, Knowledge Tags, Runbooks & Workflows, and Callable agents.

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Pattern 4: Delegate to Specialist Agents

Use sub-agents for focused expertise, safer tool access, or clean handoffs. The parent workflow or agent keeps ownership of the customer experience. The child agent handles a narrower task and returns a useful result. Examples:

• General Support Agent delegates a billing question to Billing Agent.
• Workflow calls Evidence Drafting Agent, then routes the output to approval.

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Pattern 5: Keep Humans in the Loop

Use Escalation Rules, Restrictions, the Escalator tool, and approval settings when the situation needs human judgment. Common triggers include legal threats, account security, VIP handling, high-value refunds, angry customers, low confidence, and requests outside policy.

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Pattern 6: Run Recurring Operational Work

Use scheduled deployments for daily summaries, SLA checks, periodic reviews, and feedback loops. Duckie Assistant agents fit well for reporting, run review, and Duckie configuration improvement. They are not usually the primary choice for real-time customer support routing.

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Choosing the Pattern

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Test and Monitor

Start deployments in Testing mode when possible. Use Test > Playground, Test > Replay Chats, and Test > Batch Test before switching to Live. After launch, review Analyze > Runs and track Categories, Attributes, and Resolution Tracking so you can see which routes are working.

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