Enterprise AI Agent Design Patterns
11 reusable architectural blueprints for building reliable, governed enterprise AI agents on Workato.
What Are Design Patterns?
Design patterns are reusable architectural blueprints for solving common challenges in enterprise AI agent design. Each pattern describes a specific approach to agent reasoning, task execution, or coordination — when it applies, when it doesn't, and how it works in practice.
These 11 patterns cover the full range of enterprise agentic AI implementations. Most production agents combine 2–3 patterns rather than implementing just one.
The 11 Patterns
ReAct
Reasoning + Acting in alternating steps
Chain of Thought
Show your work before acting
Plan-and-Execute
Plan first, then execute step by step
Tool Use
Well-designed tools make reliable agents
Reflection
Self-evaluation before delivery
Multi-Agent Collaboration
Specialist agents working in coordination
Human-in-the-Loop
Human review gates for high-stakes actions
Memory-Augmented
Persistent context across sessions
Router
Smart routing to the right specialist
Parallelization
Independent sub-tasks run concurrently
Orchestrator-Subagent
One coordinator, multiple executors