A fixed chain of LLM calls: outline → draft → polish.
Breaking the job into smaller steps makes the result more reliable than one big call. But notice who designed the steps: a human did. The system always runs these three stages, in this order, no matter what. It can't decide to skip a step, add one, or look something up.
- Adds over rung 01: reliability through decomposition; predictable cost.
- Can't: deviate from the human-written script.
node main.jsThis is the line most people blur. A workflow is LLM calls on rails. The next rung hands the steering wheel to the model itself.
Real tools that live here: Notion AI (summarize → rewrite → format, fixed steps). n8n or Zapier with AI nodes — a human designed the flow, the model fills the blanks. Most "AI-powered" SaaS features. LangChain chains without a loop. The model is doing real work, but every step was written by a human in advance.
➡ Next rung: 03 : Agent