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Module 03 · Lesson 10

Map the happy path and the hard paths

Design the normal journey and the exceptions before real customers discover them for you.

Last updated August 5, 2026•15–25 minutes•Free AI agent course
What you will learn

Map normal and exceptional paths

You will be able to map the common route through an agent workflow and the specific conditions that require a different question, a pause, or a human handoff.

Why this matters

Good agent work is useful before it is impressive.

A demo usually follows the happy path. Production work includes incomplete details, conflicting records, angry people, outages, unsupported questions, and requests that look simple until the system acts on them.

Field note 10

Design the normal route and the exceptions together

Design the normal route and the exceptions together
Design the normal route and the exceptions together
Core concepts

The language that keeps the work clear.

Happy pathThe most common, low-risk sequence from trigger to completion.
Hard pathA foreseeable variation that changes what information, action, or owner is needed.
Uncertainty thresholdThe condition that causes the agent to ask, defer, or route rather than pretend certainty.
Safe failureA useful response that preserves context and gets the case to a person without making things worse.
The practical method

How to map normal and exceptional paths

Draw the normal case

Show the minimal path from first signal to a completed outcome.

List missing-information cases

Identify which facts the agent can request and which absences require a person.

List action and tool failures

Decide what happens if a source cannot be read, an appointment is unavailable, or a system returns conflicting information.

Write the escalation experience

Specify the language, summary, owner, and expected next step a customer receives when the agent stops.

Worked example

Worked case: map the happy path and the hard paths

An agent helps customers reschedule a home-service appointment. The happy path verifies identity, checks approved availability, confirms the new slot, and records it.

A hard path appears when a customer has an emergency issue, when the CRM has two similar appointments, or when the proposed slot would breach an existing policy. The agent must not invent a resolution.

It says what it can do, captures the relevant details, keeps the customer informed, and creates a task for the dispatch owner with a concise summary. The handoff is part of the design, not an apology after a failure.

Build it in practice

Complete the working artifact

Happy path: [steps]. Missing information: [question or handoff]. Conflicting data: [stop condition]. Tool failure: [fallback]. Sensitive case: [owner + message]. Customer promise during handoff: [sentence].
Design-pattern check

Choose an architecture pattern, not a fashionable label.

Start with the simplest pattern that fits the work: a prompt chain, router, parallel tasks, evaluator loop, or orchestrator with bounded workers. Every additional agent adds coordination, context, latency, cost, and another place to lose control.

  • Name why one model call is insufficient.
  • Draw the state and stop condition for every loop.
  • Measure whether the added pattern improves the test set enough to justify its cost.

Sources used for this check

Practice

Before you move on

  • Map one normal case and four hard paths.
  • Run the map with an operator who handles exceptions today.
  • Write the exact customer-facing handoff sentence for each risky path.
  • The happy path is short and testable.
  • Common exceptions are mapped before launch.
  • The agent does not pretend a tool failure is success.
  • Every hard path has an owner and preserved context.

Lesson progress

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