A small checklist before shipping a Claude API workflow

Most Claude API s work on day one. Production workflows usually fail around the edges. Before I ship a Claude workflow for a SaaS app, I check these parts first: 1. Is the output structured? If the next step parses prose, the workflow will break. I prefer JSON schema or another explicit contract so the app can consume the result safely. 2. What happens on retry? Rate limits, partial failures, and timeout paths need a boring answer. The workflow should know when to retry, when to stop, and what to log. 3.