# There are many factories, but this one s yoursAll coding harnesses and code factories have a few major flaws: 1. You don t get to pick the workflow - someone else decides the workflow for you 2. It s often unclear when the human is needed - is the agent done, or do you need to verify? 3. You re limited to prose and all it s downsides - nested logic and complex compesition is pretty much out of the question 4. We end up relying heavily on agents calling mcp s or cli s for things that should be deterministic calls## You don t get to pick the workflowWhy should the guys at vercel, linear, factory, anthropic, or openai decide what workflow is best for you?Penguin flips that:YOU decide what workflow is best.Three concepts: Workflows - what s run Adapters - a way to connect to the outside world Messages - async or sync sent between workflows and adaptersWith these three primitives, you can build incredibly complex workflows including, but not limited to, software factories.## It s often unclear when the human is neededWith Penguin, you can write deterministic pauses in workflow ( New messages from slack, would you like to pause implementing or read them after? )When an agent stops it s either because the agent needs human input or because it is done. When done, the workflow moves on to the next step until a human is needed. There is clear separation between an agent finishing and human input needed.## You re limited to prose and all it s downsidesIf you want a workflow that runs another workflow that runs another workflow that runs several agents and it runs all those workflows in peralell, you just can t do that with prose very easily. Code is much more clearThe workflows and adapters all are written in TypeScript making it incredibly straightforward to build a new workflow or adapter.## We end up relying heavily on agents calling mcp s or cli s for things that should be deterministic callsWhen you implement a github issue, jira ticket, or review a PR, you are ALWAYS going to pull the info from those sources, and you can do this with a script. There s no need for the agent to use an MCP.## Final notesYou can build a workflow that has steps, blockers, and all, without ever even calling an agent.You can make workflows that respond to all kinds of triggers: Slack, GitHub, Jira, User, a webhook, anything you can bulid an adapter forPenguin is the ultimately composable workflow builderInstall with: `npm install -g @mikaelweiss/penguin` https://github.com/mikaelweiss/penguinStill early beta, but I ve already started using Penguin at work as well as to build Penquin!