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SHRINESHRINE

Pipeline Orchestration

Assembly line: each stage transforms and passes forward.

The Pattern

Section titled “The Pattern”

Structure work as sequential stages, where:

  • Each stage has a clear input and output contract
  • Output of stage N becomes input to stage N+1
  • Stages can be swapped, versioned, or optimized independently

When to Use

Section titled “When to Use”
  • Multi-step transformations (draft → review → polish)
  • Tasks with natural phases (research → plan → execute)
  • When intermediate outputs are valuable checkpoints
  • Processes that benefit from separation of concerns

Implementation Notes

Section titled “Implementation Notes”
  • Define clear interfaces between stages
  • Consider checkpointing: save intermediate state for debugging or retry
  • Each stage should be independently testable
  • Failures should identify which stage broke

Example Pipelines

Section titled “Example Pipelines”

Research Pipeline

  1. Query expansion (what to search for)
  2. Search execution (gather sources)
  3. Extraction (pull relevant facts)
  4. Synthesis (combine into answer)

Code Review Pipeline

  1. Diff analysis (what changed)
  2. Impact assessment (what could break)
  3. Finding generation (specific issues)
  4. Priority ranking (what matters most)

Anti-patterns

Section titled “Anti-patterns”
  • Stages that are too coupled (can’t run one without all the others)
  • No visibility into intermediate state
  • Monolithic “do everything” stages that defeat the purpose
Section titled “Related Patterns”