--- title: Why I Stopped Using One Agent and Built a Multi-Agent... description: A practical walkthrough explaining why a single LLM agent fails at complex tasks like text-to-SQL, and how to replace it with a multi-agent pipeline. The... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-stopped-using-one-agent-and-built-a-multi-agent-pipeline-instead-mkq8bhaeb twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Why I Stopped Using One Agent and Built a Multi-Agent Pipeline Instead | daily.dev og:description: A practical walkthrough explaining why a single LLM agent fails at complex tasks like text-to-SQL, and how to replace it with a multi-agent pipeline. The... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-stopped-using-one-agent-and-built-a-multi-agent-pipeline-instead-mkq8bhaeb og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/MkQ8BHAeb.png og:image:alt: Why I Stopped Using One Agent and Built a Multi-Agent Pipeline Instead og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Why I Stopped Using One Agent and Built a Multi-Agent Pipeline Instead **[Towards Data Science](https://daily.dev/sources/tds)** · 13 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A practical walkthrough explaining why a single LLM agent fails at complex tasks like text-to-SQL, and how to replace it with a multi-agent pipeline. The author breaks the problem into five specialized agents: Intent Parser, Schema Agent, Query Builder, Critic, and Response Agent, wired together using LangGraph with explicit state management and conditional retry logic. The post covers the LangGraph graph definition, node implementations using Gemini 2.5 Flash, feedback loops that pass critic output back to the builder, and production failure modes including context bleed, schema hallucination on large databases, compounding token costs, and silent JSON parsing failures. Ends with honest guidance on when NOT to use multi-agent architecture. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Three Years of Building Agents in Production \(Part 1\)](https://daily.dev/posts/three-years-of-building-agents-in-production-part-1--d2wjasjzx) · Mabl Engineering Blog · 3 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#ai-agents](https://daily.dev/tags/ai-agents), [#langchain](https://daily.dev/tags/langchain), [#langgraph](https://daily.dev/tags/langgraph) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-stopped-using-one-agent-and-built-a-multi-agent-pipeline-instead-mkq8bhaeb) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Why I Stopped Using One Agent and Built a Multi-Agent Pipeline Instead","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-stopped-using-one-agent-and-built-a-multi-agent-pipeline-instead-mkq8bhaeb","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-stopped-using-one-agent-and-built-a-multi-agent-pipeline-instead-mkq8bhaeb"},"datePublished":"2026-06-24T13:36:42.618Z","dateModified":"2026-06-24T13:37:05.419Z","description":"A practical walkthrough explaining why a single LLM agent fails at complex tasks like text-to-SQL, and how to replace it with a multi-agent pipeline. 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