Find the workflows that succeed the hard way
Failure is visible. Friction often disappears into a successful final result. Direct reports reveal the retries, detours, and missing primitives inside that success.
- For
- Product and developer experience teams improving agent workflows
- Question
- Find successful AI agent workflows with hidden friction
- Start with
- Take a workflow with a high success rate that support still gets questions about, and invite reports after success.
- Updated
“Checkout took four sequential calls because customer lookup, address validation, quote, and confirmation cannot be composed safely.”
Requested changeAdd a compound checkout operation with a dry-run mode.
{
"tool": "submit_agent_feedback",
"arguments": {
"feedback_type": "workflow_feedback",
"tool_or_endpoint": "checkout",
"summary": "Checkout took four sequential calls because customer lookup, address validation, quote, and confirmation cannot be composed safely.",
"outcome": "success",
"satisfaction": 3,
"suggested_fix": "Add a compound checkout operation with a dry-run mode."
}
}A synthetic example in the shape a real report takes. Emic never manufactures a report from observed behavior.
What this research can teach youThree things a success metric cannot tell you about this workflow.
Which calls were only scaffolding
The report identifies lookups, conversions, and status checks the agent needed before the meaningful operation.
Where partial success became risky
Agents can explain when retries, idempotency, or rollback behavior made a multi-step workflow unsafe.
What would remove calls or tokens
A direct request can point to a compound tool, cursor, concise response, or better default.
Eight lanes, and where each one goesRouting is the difference between a research inbox and a bug queue.
Eight lanes, because failure is only one of them
Friction and workflow feedback are the two lanes a success metric hides. They route to product, not to the error queue.
From one question to a product decision5 moves, in order. Each one produces something you can point at.
Choose a workflow, not an endpoint
Study the complete job the agent is trying to finish across several product primitives.
A user-centered boundaryInvite friction reports after success
Make it clear that a completed task can still deserve a report.
Signal beyond failuresCapture the detour in agent words
Ask which calls, retries, or assumptions felt unnecessary or risky.
Stated experienceSeparate repeated themes from source reports
Use inferred grouping for prioritization while preserving each direct report.
A traceable themeSimplify and repeat
Change the workflow and keep listening for whether the same workaround returns.
A before and after research loopWhat the direct channel records, and what it never touchesThe default install is additive. It adds two tools and changes nothing else.
The research submission
- The friction summary the agent files
- The tool or workflow it names
- Outcome and satisfaction supplied by the agent
- The proposed shortcut or recovery improvement
Everything else
- Passive replay of the original workflow
- Automatic capture of retries and tool results
- A synthetic experience score derived from traces
- Inference presented as a direct report
One paste, then verify a real reportA healthy endpoint is not an active study. The inbox record is the proof.
Install Emic into this project: add submit_agent_feedback and get_unblocked as direct tools. Never wrap or record existing tool calls, arguments, results, errors, transcripts, or messages. Additive only, plain HTTP, zero dependencies. Full instructions: https://emic.sh/llms-full.txt
The agent writes the handler, registers the two tools beside your existing ones, and verifies its own install by checking the response. Nothing is placed in front of the tools you already ship.
- Adds
submit_agent_feedbackandget_unblocked, as direct tools- Never touches
- Existing tool calls, arguments, results, errors, messages, and transcripts
- Agents read
emic.sh/llms-full.txt- Start with
- Take a workflow with a high success rate that support still gets questions about, and invite reports after success.
The method, without collapsing the evidence
Outcome metrics skip the experience
Success rate compresses the entire job into its last state. It does not preserve uncertainty, unnecessary calls, token-heavy results, or the moment the agent nearly chose an unsafe action.
Direct feedback adds the user account without pretending to replace operational evidence.
Friction is not failure with a softer label
A bug means something broke. Workflow friction means the job worked at an avoidable cost. Keeping those lanes separate changes which fixes rise to the top.
Questions teams ask before starting
Why not infer friction from call count?
A long workflow can be appropriate, and a short one can still be confusing. Call count is observed behavior. The agent report explains the experience.
Does Emic capture the workflow automatically?
No. The default integration collects only the direct report the agent submits after the work.
How should I prioritize friction?
Read the source reports, then combine recurrence with user impact, strategic importance, operational evidence, and implementation cost.
Follow the problem, not a keyword trailAdjacent routes are chosen by the decision they inform.
Agent feature requests
The best agent feature request contains more than a vote. It explains the job, the missing primitive, the workaround, and what the change would remove.
Read next Use cases · APIsAPI feedback from agents
Agents are becoming API users with goals, constraints, and opinions. Give them a way to explain the work behind the status code.
Read next Guides · Category boundaryExperience vs observability
Observability explains system behavior. Experience research preserves what the user says the work was like. Strong product decisions often need both, clearly labeled.
Read nextHear about the work that succeeds painfully
Add a direct friction lane to one workflow and learn which detours your success metric hides.
The assisted 14-day pilot costs nothing. Start with one isolated workflow, and remove Emic by deleting the two tools it added.
- One paste to install
- 0ms on your hot path
- 14-day assisted pilot
- Two added tools to remove