thinkdifferent.blog · Course one-pager

Reliable AI Agent Engineering

An expert course on designing bounded AI agents with explicit state, typed tools, durable execution, approval gates, evaluation, observability, and incident recovery.

Advanced 18 hours 17 lessons 6 modules

What you will master

Safe Tool Contracts
Expose narrow, typed capabilities with validation, authorization, and idempotency built in.
Explicit Control Flow
Separate model decisions from application-owned state, budgets, and stop conditions.
Meaningful Approval Gates
Pause before consequential actions and show reviewers the exact proposed effect.
Operational Recovery
Resume interrupted work, diagnose loops, compensate partial effects, and replay incidents safely.

Curriculum

Foundations: Scope, Contract, and State
- Decide Whether the Workflow Needs an Agent
- Write the Agent Contract
- Own State Outside the Model
Tools, Authority, and Idempotent Effects
- Design Narrow Tool Capabilities
- Separate Planning from Authority
- Make Effects Idempotent
Bounded Execution and Human Approval
- Set Budgets and Stop Conditions
- Add Human Approval Where It Matters
- Build Durable Pause and Resume
Hardening, Recovery, and Evaluation
- Treat External Content as Untrusted
- Recover from Partial Failure
- Evaluate Trajectories, Not Just Answers
Production Operations
- Observe Without Leaking Sensitive Data
- Roll Out Autonomy Gradually
- Handle Incidents and Replay Safely
- Operate the Agent as a Product
Bonus: Concurrency Across Runs
- Lock the Resource, Not Just the Effect