---
title: "Workflow-level domain boundaries · Agentic Atlas"
description: "Workflow-level domain boundaries: The workflow reframing exposed several nodes whose homes or names were inherited from skill packaging rather than their…"
canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/decisions/0010-domain-boundary-revisions"
last-updated: "2026-08-19"
---

Manifest-selected Decision

Canonical id

0010-domain-boundary-revisions

Status

accepted

Catalog order

4

Catalog revision `35263c4c415da742953d0462804fb14424e2244dae4c63efd27e468988de70ab`

# 0010: Workflow-level domain boundaries

**Status:** accepted **Date:** 2026-07-14

## Context

The workflow reframing exposed several nodes whose homes or names were inherited from skill packaging rather than their structural moves. A corpus review had also recorded contradictions around Progressive Disclosure, Persistence, promotion authority, the human gate, and the overloaded word "hoist."

## Decision

- **Composition** means decomposing a workflow into bounded responsibilities behind seams. A component may be deterministic code, an in-context module, a tool, or a child LLM execution. Recursive dispatch is one realization, not the definition.
- **Progressive Disclosure** belongs directly under Context Engineering. It combines deferral and distillation to create graded access; it does not compose workflow components.
- **Constrained Generation** remains separate from Externalization. Externalization freezes repeatable procedure outside the LLM; constrained generation keeps generation in the LLM while bounding its output space.
- **Persistence** receives a parent concept: stateless LLM workflows construct continuity through external artifacts. Configuration and durable state are its authorship/lifecycle branches.
- **Fresh-context trials** replace the thin "testing with subagents" framing. A child is an isolated test execution, not assumed to be a trustworthy grader; the parent owns fixtures, comparison, assertions, and iteration. The move supports both TDD and comparative trials.
- A **human gate** is a contracted control-flow seam, not an application of recursive LLM dispatch.
- The controlling workflow owns recovery. A checker supplies a defined verdict and evidence; it does not silently choose retry, repair, degradation, escalation, or abandonment.
- In staged effects, sandbox-then-merge engineers isolation. Describe-then- execute keeps the generating worker pure and relocates the effect to a trusted executor; it is not itself the isolated class.
- Reserve **hoist** for moving stable procedure or judgment out of repeated LLM execution. Information transformation remains **distillation**.

## Consequences

- Live nodes and the authoritative map adopt these homes and boundaries.
- Skill-specific examples may remain, but the node claims above them are framed at workflow level.
- Concrete compositional examples and their domains remain deferred until the spec corpus is complete.
- The final corpus title, Portfolio's workflow-level role, and the exact foundation-level relationship between the contract and recursive dispatch remain unresolved.

[Browse all selected Decisions](https://agentic-atlas.dev/decisions)