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Recommended · Guide · Anthropic · 2024

Building effective agents

Practical patterns for agent systems - and the case for starting with the simplest setup that works.

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In short How we build agents: simple, verifiable, with clear tools.

What it is about

A practical guide drawn from many agent projects: which patterns work, when you actually need an agent, and when a fixed workflow is enough.

What caught our attention

The clear distinction between workflows (predefined steps) and agents (the model decides) - and the advice to start with the simplest solution and add complexity only where it measurably helps.

What we take from it

That is how we build: agents only where judgement is needed, everything else deterministic code. In our test operations with agents, two agents do the work - the rest is fixed logic with four human decision points.

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