Slides: Agents vs Workflows: Why Not Both? — Sam Bhagwat, Mastra.ai
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Agents vs Workflows: Why Not Both? — Sam Bhagwat, Mastra.ai
Relationship To World's Fair 2026
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Extracted Slides
OCR text:
INNOVATIONPARTNER
aws
PLATINUMSPONSORS
Graphite
WWindsurf
MongoDB
daily
augment code
Workos
OCR text:
Who I am
Why I’m giving this talk
Sam Bhagwat
Founder/CEO, Mastra.ai
Prev: Gatsby co-founder
Author, Principles of Building AI Agents
sam on X/Twitter
Mastra is the leading Typescript agent framework
Users use our agent and workflow primitives for different use-cases...and sometimes together
Mastra
The TypeScript AI Framework
npm create mastra
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
World’s Fair
OCR text:
AIE In December Anthropic wrote a great blog post
that canonically defined agents and workflows
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft smol?
Worid'sFair
OCR text:
AIE released a paper In April OpenAl on the topic guideto Apractical buildingagents
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft smolo
World'sFair
OCR text:
@openai
AIE
Hot Take #1:
HELLO
my nameis
ThatGuy
Don'tbe That Guy
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft
smol?
World'sFair
OCR text:
Sometimes That Guy works for a
FAANG type company in a public
facing role
Then the rest of us are really in for it
_ aws
| ara) | name
OCR text:
“Use the platform” was a codeword for
why React was wrong and anti-web
4 aws
== nana
OCR text:
AIE
Some of our users loved this.
But many folks didn't
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft
smol°
World'sFair
OCR text:
AIE SowhenIseeAPls const graph =new MessageGraph() 1/Langgraph.js
like this, it gives me (bad) flashbacks.addEdge(“nodeB"，END).addNode(“nodeB"funcB).addEdge("nodeA"，"nodeB").addEdge(START,"nodeA").addNode("nodeA",funcA) nodes edges
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft smol?
World'sFair
OCR text:
AIE
Or like this:
const [notifyTeam,assignPlan]= await Promise.all（[
step.run("notify_team",async（)=>{
return{notified:true};
step.run("assign_default_plan",async()=>{
return{planId:“starter"};
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft
smol?
OCR text:
AIE
Or like this:
const [notifyTeam,assignPlan]= await Promise.all（[
step.run("notify_team",async（）=>{
return{notified:true };
step.run("assign_default_plan",async()=>{
return {planId:“starter"};
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
OCR text:
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OCR text:
a . |
How the WorkOS folks put it in their a ar
Mastra workshop yesterday:
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OCR text:
Here’s another way to put It:
(1) Agents are a turn
based game.
(2) Workflows are a rules
engine for your tech
Ugeto1
; sick ES 10 Uh
OCR text:
Here’s another way to put It:
(1) Agents store threads of messages and
continuously interact with users
(2) Workflows can have branching. parallelism,
conditions. loops, can suspend/resume, etc
a, aws
! 7]
ee
OCR text:
AIE At the end of control
justa tradeoff theday it'sall
multi-agent agent workflow
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft smol?
Word'sFair
OCR text:
Rules of agents + workflow composition
(1) Agents have tools
(2) Workflows have steps
(3) An agent can be a step
(4) A workflow can be a tool
(5) An agent can be a tool
(A\ A workflow can be a step
i aws
ee = | See
OCR text:
const researchAgent nev Agent（{
nane:'research-agent',
Lnstrocttons:You are a research agent that analyzes
Agent supervisor
questtonsopenai(gpt-4'),
const summaryAgent-new Agent（{
nase:'sunary-agent',
instructlons:You are a su
Supervisor
model:openal(gpt-4).
AIE
const researchTool=createTool（{
id:'research',
execute:async（tnputData））{
constresult=await researchAgent.0
rate(inputData.query);
return{text:resutt.text）;
F.
const summaryTool=createTool（{
ld:*summarize'
execute:async（{inputData}）{
const result -awalt summaryAgent.generateLnputData.text);
return{text:Tesult.text）;
export const supervlsorAgent=new Agent（
hane:'supervisor-agent'.
nodel:openal('gpt-4'),
research and summarization tasks.
tools:[researchTool,summaryTool],
aws
Word'sFair
OCR text:
Workflowastool
export const agent = new Agent（{
name:'Agent',
instructions:Ask the user for
AIE
their location,check weather，
and plan a trip，
model:openai('gpt-4o-mini'),
workflows:
checkweather,
planTrip
memory,
github.com/mastra-ai/mastra
Microsoft
smol?
World'sFair
OCR text:
AI Engineer
World's Fair
OCR text:
AI Engineer
World's Fair
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