Option C follows a prompt-chaining/workflow decomposition pattern. Ticket classification and reply generation are materially different tasks. Triage may require a constrained category, priority, or routing decision, while response generation requires richer context, tone, policy compliance, and customer-facing language. Splitting the stages allows each Claude call to use a prompt, context set, model configuration, output format, and evaluation criterion appropriate to that specific responsibility.

Anthropic's guidance on effective agentic systems distinguishes predictable workflows from open-ended agents and recommends using the simplest architecture that meets requirements. Predefined workflows are particularly appropriate where work can be divided into clear processing stages.

This decomposition also creates useful engineering boundaries: the triage output can be validated before becoming input to the drafting stage; triage accuracy and response quality can be evaluated independently; and either stage can later be optimized without rewriting the entire process.

A unnecessarily restricts the second stage to rules. B introduces expensive parallel generation and a selection step without a stated requirement. D optimizes solely for call count while sacrificing task separation and observability.

The supplied exam source marks C. Relevant topics: Agent Patterns, prompt chaining, workflow decomposition, focused prompts, stage-level evaluation, and modular Claude application design.

===============