agents
9 entries filed under “agents”.
2026
- 10 min
The Bill Is Part of the Loop
Every model response already carries its own bill in the usage field, and the loop throws it away. This post reads that field, prices it against a table, and turns cost into a value the loop can see per turn and act on: a metering decorator that needs no loop change, a running ledger, prompt-cache accounting that moves the number the most, and a budget that degrades before it stops. Part eight of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 14 min
The Model Is a Dependency
Every layer of the harness has existed to put the right tokens in front of one hardcoded model string. This post pulls that string out and makes the model a dependency: why you route a cheap model for easy turns and a strong one for hard turns, what a fallback looks like when a provider is down, and why 'models are commodities' is a claim about your architecture before it is a claim about the market. Part seven of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 19 min
Memory Is a Write Path
Retrieval reads context the project authored. Memory is the agent writing context for its own future sessions, and the write is the part that is dangerous. Why session memory comes free from the transcript, why cross-session memory needs a separate write surface, and how to let an agent remember without letting it corrupt its own ground truth. Part six of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 16 min
Retrieval Is a Tool, Not a Layer
Loading the whole .AGENTS/ directory on every turn does not scale. The fix is not a retrieval layer bolted to the side of the agent. It is a search tool in the registry the agent already has. BM25 over project docs, no vector store, and an honest account of when embeddings start to earn their keep. Part five of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 26 min
Context Is the Product
Models are commodities. Context is not. The sources of context an agent draws on, why retrieval alone is not enough, and a minimal .AGENTS/ convention that loads context from disk into the same harness we have been building. Part four of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 13 min
Tools: How Agents Actually Do Things
Function calling is the API between language and action, but the engineering is in the registry. A working four-tool registry in TypeScript on Bun, schema design that survives model drift, parallel tool calls, and the failure modes nobody mentions in the demo. Part three of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 16 min
Your Agent Wants Root
An agent with a shell tool is arbitrary code execution with a friendly face. A short tour of why Docker alone is not enough, what Firecracker, gVisor, and Kata actually solve, and a hardened sandbox you can wrap the post-one agent in today. Part two of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 19 min
What an Agent Actually Is
AI agent is the most overloaded word in the industry. This is the anatomy, the lineage, and a working implementation in roughly two hundred lines of TypeScript on Bun. Part one of The Agent Platform Handbook.
- 19 min
What Sixteen AI Agents Taught Me About Management
What happens when you give sixteen AI agents an org chart, a reporting structure, and a token budget. A story about orchestration, management, and running out of runway.