A workflow is not finished just because the happy-path example looks right. Before making it part of your routine, think about the situations your real work is likely to produce.
Inputs and repeated events
First, check missing information. Which fields are required, and what should happen when one is absent? Stop, ask for review, or continue with a clearly labelled fallback.
Second, check repeated events. If a form is submitted twice or a service retries a notification, decide whether the action should happen once or twice. A stable source identifier can help a real implementation detect duplicates.
Permissions and ownership
Third, verify permissions. Use only the access needed for the task and make sure the workflow does not depend on an account that may disappear when someone changes roles.
Fourth, name an owner. Someone should know what the workflow is for, where it runs, and how to pause it if the underlying process changes.
A useful record of what happened
Fifth, decide what a helpful activity log looks like. Record enough context to trace a run without copying sensitive information into every notification.
A failed step should be visible and actionable. In a real system, test how failures reach the owner and whether retrying the action could create duplicates. The previews on this site demonstrate the sequence only; they are not a reliability guarantee.
The takeaway
Check the edges as carefully as the happy path: inputs, duplicates, access, ownership, and visibility.
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