Agent Building Patterns That Actually Work

3/3/2025

Reliable agents share four traits:

1) Clear scope and tools - Give the agent a small set of capabilities tied to business outcomes. - Example tools: search docs, query CRM, create task, post Slack.

2) Structured memory and context - Retrieve the right snippets; avoid flooding the model. - Keep a short system prompt, a checklist, and a scratchpad for state.

3) Guardrails and evaluation - Validate outputs: required fields, safe actions, retry policies. - Log decisions; sample and review weekly.

4) Human-in-the-loop moments - Let humans approve key actions (e.g., customer emails, contract text). - Close the loop by saving final outcomes to your systems.

Start small, ship one agent that saves 5–10 hours/week, then scale.