All terms
Patterns
Routing
Deciding which downstream handler, model, or pipeline should process a given request.
Definition
Routing is the decision logic that selects which downstream handler should process a request. In language-model systems this can mean choosing between a fast small model and a slow large one, picking a specialized agent for a topic, or dispatching to the right search pipeline. Routing can follow fixed rules, compare the query by meaning, or be decided by a model itself. Good routing improves both cost efficiency and response quality.