# Guides

> Step-by-step guides that build complete workflows, and practices that keep them reliable.

Each guide builds one complete workflow, step by step. Start with [Your first workflow](your-first-workflow.md) if you haven't built one yet.

## Build a workflow

- [Add an AI agent to a workflow](add-an-ai-agent.md): add an AI agent, pass data to it, and route the workflow on its decision.
- [Call an external API](call-an-external-api.md): call an authenticated Representational State Transfer (REST) API and use data from the response.
- [Process incoming emails](process-incoming-emails.md): start a workflow on each new email and route it by content.
- [Build a Slack notification workflow](build-a-slack-notification-workflow.md): compose a message from workflow data and post it to a Slack channel.
- [Add human approval to a workflow](add-human-approval.md): pause for a human's approval and continue on the answer.
- [Build a chat agent workflow](build-a-chat-agent-workflow.md): build a chat with a helpdesk agent that hands off to an account specialist.
- [Handle errors](handle-errors.md): send failures down an error path, log them, retry, and end cleanly.

## Build it well

- [Debugging basics](debugging-basics.md): run a workflow in debug mode, read the run, and fix what failed.
- [Human in the loop: escalation or human step](escalation-or-human-node.md): choose how to bring a human into a workflow.
- [Evaluating your workflows](evaluating-workflows.md): prove that a workflow and its agents do what you expect.

## Next steps

- [Node reference](node-reference.md): every node and how to configure it.
- [Example workflows](example-workflows.md): six workflows that Maestro Automate is built for.
- [Community](community.md): ask questions and share workflows with other builders.