Workflow Automation Engines

Workflow automation engines are the runtime systems that execute multi-step, multi-tool processes defined either by humans (traditional automation) or by agents (agentic automation). In the agentic context, these engines provide the execution backbone — they handle scheduling, retry logic, state persistence, and monitoring while agents handle the intelligence. Products like n8n, Temporal, and custom orchestration layers serve this function. The engine provides reliability; the agent provides adaptability.