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ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: ZENODO
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY NC ND
Data sources: Datacite
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LLMs Are Unreliable Routers. Orchestration Is Not an Inference Problem.

Authors: Gondim, Gustavo;

LLMs Are Unreliable Routers. Orchestration Is Not an Inference Problem.

Abstract

Current industry practice delegates agent coordination to LLM inference: the model picks which agent runs next, what data gets passed, and when to move between workflow stages. This paper argues that approach is unsound for production systems. I bring together evidence from three lines of research: (1) context degradation, where LLM performance measurably declines as input length increases, even well below nominal context window limits; (2) instruction-following failures, where current models satisfy fewer than 30% of instructions in agentic scenarios; and (3) the track record of deterministic compilation and DAG-based orchestration architectures that decouple planning from execution. I argue that reliable multi-agent workflows require treating orchestration as a runtime systems problem, governed by state machines, typed contracts, and deterministic transition logic, not as a natural language understanding problem. I propose six design principles for deterministic agent orchestration and identify open challenges.

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Keywords

LLM orchestration, agentic AI, multi-agent systems, deterministic workflows, context degradation, instruction following

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average