Agentic Workflows — Mastery8 / 8
Multi-Tool Pipelines — Ticket to Reviewed Branch
The payoff: chain MCP, hooks, commands and subagents into one flow that takes a ticket to a reviewed branch — with you in the loop only where it counts.
Each building block is useful alone. Chained, they become a pipeline that takes a ticket from "assigned" to "reviewed branch" while you watch the decisions, not the keystrokes.
The flow
- Pull the work — an MCP server fetches the ticket (Linear, Jira, GitHub) so the agent has the real spec, not your paraphrase.
- Plan first — start in
planmode. The agent reads the codebase and proposes an approach. You approve or redirect — the one human gate that matters. - Implement with guardrails — it edits code; a
PostToolUsehook auto-formats every file; aPreToolUsehook blocks anything destructive. - Review by a specialist — a
code-reviewersubagent reads the diff in its own context and reports bugs, security issues, and missing tests. - Ship — a
/open-prcustom command writes the branch, commit, and PR body from the diff.
Wiring it as one command
Package the repeatable part as a slash command so the team runs the same pipeline:
---
description: Take a ticket to a reviewed branch
argument-hint: [ticket-id]
allowed-tools: Read, Edit, Bash(git *:*), mcp__linear__*
---
1. Fetch ticket $1 via the Linear MCP and summarize the spec.
2. Propose a plan and wait for approval.
3. Implement; rely on hooks for formatting and safety.
4. Invoke the code-reviewer subagent on the diff.
5. Open a PR with a summary of changes and the review findings.
Unattended runs
For CI or overnight batches, run headless: claude -p with --output-format json and a strict --allowedTools. The agent never blocks on a prompt — because you set the limits up front.
Series — Agentic Workflows — Mastery
- Part 01The Agentic Workflow MindsetMost developers treat AI like a smarter autocomplete. The ones who pull ahead treat it like a teammate that acts. Here is the mental model.
- Part 02MCP Servers 101 — Give Your Agent Real ToolsThe Model Context Protocol is how your agent stops guessing and starts querying your database, your issues, your browser. Here is the mental model and the first connection.
- Part 03Build Your First Custom MCP ServerOff-the-shelf servers cover GitHub and Postgres. The high-leverage one is the server only you can write — the bridge to your own system.
- Part 04Hooks — Make the Agent Obey Your RulesA prompt asks the model to remember. A hook makes it happen — deterministically, every time, outside the model's control.
- Part 05Custom Slash Commands as Team WorkflowsA custom slash command is a reusable prompt you commit to the repo — so the whole team runs the same high-quality instruction instead of re-typing it.
- Part 06Subagents — Delegating Work That ScalesOne giant context gets slow and vague. Subagents let the main agent hand focused work to specialists with their own context and tools — and run them in parallel.
- Part 07The Daily-Driver Setup — Settings, Permissions, Status LineThe difference between fighting the agent and flowing with it is twenty minutes of configuration you do once. Here is the setup.
- Part 08Multi-Tool Pipelines — Ticket to Reviewed Branch — you are hereThe payoff: chain MCP, hooks, commands and subagents into one flow that takes a ticket to a reviewed branch — with you in the loop only where it counts.