Agentic Systems Design

Engineering agentic systems · Volumes 1–3

The broad discipline of engineering the system around a capable model — the environment an agent acts in and the context it reasons over, then the tools it uses, how those are orchestrated, and how the whole is evaluated and operated. Delivered foundation-first across three volumes.

The volumes (Design v1.0 — all complete)

1. Volume 1 — Environment & Context — the environment an agent acts in + the context it reasons over.
2. Volume 2 — Tools & Orchestration — tool & MCP design, tool minimization, sub-agents, multi-agent, build-vs-buy a harness.
3. Volume 3 — Evaluation & Operations — evals & validation, observability, cost, oversight / HITL, security.

Design v1.0 = Volumes 1–3 (28 chapters, all complete). A later problem-first applied volume (v2.0) will re-traverse the material through real problems. (Prompting lives in the Handbook and the Architect's Reference, not a Design volume.)

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