AI Agents in
production
One-stop guide: from the fundamentals of agents to building and
maintaining them in production
Bhavishya Pandit
the challenge
Most AI agents today are demos that break in production. Across all types of AI
initiatives, up to 85–88% of pilots never make it to production often because
architecture was ignored in pilot design. Below are some reasons for failure:
Frequent No
Failures Memory
Tool Use Hard to
is Brittle Debug
Don’t worry this post will show you how to build production-grade agentic AI
systems from the ground up. First, let’s define what an agentic system is.
Bhavishya Pandit
What Is an Agentic AI
System?
An agentic AI system isn’t just a glorified prompt-chain.
It’s an architecture built to:
Autonomously set and Monitor progress
refine sub-goals through feedback loops
Agentic AI
System
Choose and use Adapt based on
tools outcomes
Autonomously set and refine sub-goals
Choose and use tools
Monitor progress through feedback loops
Adapt based on outcomes
Think: less chatbot, more co-pilot. It doesn't just talk it executes.
👉 And to make that happen, design isn’t optional. It’s the starting point.
Bhavishya Pandit
Making Agents Production-
Ready
Here’s how to build for production, not just proof-of-concept:
1. Design in Modules, not Monoliths: Split your agent into roles: planning,
execution, memory, tools. This makes it easier to debug, scale, and improve
without breaking the whole system.
2. Add observability everywhere: You can’t fix what you can’t see. Track every
decision, tool call, and failure using structured logs and traces.
3. Use persistent, evolving memory: Let agents remember beyond a single chat.
Store useful context, past successes, and failures that help the agent grow over
time.
Bhavishya Pandit
4. Build for Failure not just Success: Add retries, fallbacks, and checkpoint
recovery to make sure one error doesn’t end the workflow.
5. Decouple the toolchain: Don’t hardcode tools like you’re writing a script.
Let the agent flexibly pick, switch, or skip tools based on what’s available.
6. Keep a human in the loop (when it matters): In high-risk tasks, autonomy
needs supervision. Let users approve actions, correct outputs, or even interrupt
the flow.
7. Guard autonomy with guardrails: Freedom without boundaries leads to chaos.
Enforce timeouts, cost limits, and validation rules to keep your agent safe and
compliant.
We’ll break down each of these ideas memory, planning, tool use, guardrails,
and more in the upcoming slides.
👇
Let’s get practical.
Bhavishya Pandit
Start with the Outcome
Bad agent design begins with:
“Let’s use Claude 3.5 or GPT-4...”
Good agent design begins with:
“What’s the outcome this agent should achieve?” Ask:
Components of Agentic Design
Is the goal to retrieve, classify, plan, generate, or summarize?
What tools, APIs, or user context does it need?
What does “success” look like and how will the agent know it succeeded?
Bhavishya Pandit
Pick an Agent Architecture
No two agents are alike. The architecture you pick defines its capabilities.
📌 Choose based on your needs:
Planning vs task execution, Workflow complexity
Toolchain compatibility, Safety requirements
ReAct: Ideal for reasoning + retrieval in a step-by-step format
LangGraph: Build branching workflows and state-aware agents
CrewAI: Manage teams of collaborative agents, each with roles
DSPy: Declarative agent framework, auto-optimizing the reasoning process
Bhavishya Pandit
Integrating MCP + A2A
MCP: A structured interface for passing memory, task states, and tools into an
LLM ensuring consistency, traceability, and reusability across calls.
A2A: Allows agents to collaborate, delegate tasks, verify work, or share
memory in real-time.
Source
Why Integrate MCP + A2A?
Maintain Shared Context Across Agents.
Enable Modular Collaboration.
Stabilize Multi-Step Reasoning.
Build Swappable, Interoperable Agents.
Bhavishya Pandit
How to Actually Integrate MCP + A2A
Tools that help:
LangGraph: Lets you design multi-agent workflows with memory, retries, and
message passing
CrewAI: Easily assign roles, goals, tools, and communication paths among
agents.
DSPy: Allows routing reasoning substeps across modular agent components
Source
Example Use Case: "Planner Agent"
→ uses MCP to define context
→ calls Retriever Agent via A2A
→ sends results to Analyzer Agent
→ Critique Agent validates
→ Synthesis Agent produces output
→ all context logged & passed via MCP
Bhavishya Pandit
Give It a Working Memory
Agent memory ≠ “Conversation history”
Agent memory = Cognitive context that grows over time
Include:
Scratchpads → Reasoning steps, in-progress goals
Vector memory → User-specific long-term knowledge
Episodic memory → What worked last time? What didn’t?
Without memory, your agent repeats. With memory, it evolves.
Bhavishya Pandit
Planning > Prompting
Prompting is about instructions. Planning is about adapting.
An agent should be able to:
Break a large task into subtasks
Decide order of execution
Adjust plan based on tool results
Detect when it's stuck and recover
Tools like LangGraph and DSPy are built exactly for this planning with checkpoints,
branches, and loops.
Bhavishya Pandit
Equip the Agent with the
Right Tools
Common tools include:
Web search or browsing
Database queries
File parsers (PDF, Excel, DOCX)
Retrieval from vector stores
Python for calculations or data cleaning
External APIs (Zapier, Twilio, Notion, etc.)
💡 Each tool makes the agent more capable but also increases risk.
Bhavishya Pandit
Add Guardrails
Autonomy doesn’t mean chaos. Design guardrails that allow flexibility without
risking failure.
Key constraints:
Source
Timeouts → prevent infinite loops
Cost limits → control API usage
Human-in-the-loop → for sensitive decisions
Output validators → ensure correct formats and content
Policy filters → for compliance, ethics, and bias
Autonomy thrives within boundaries. Design for that balance.
Bhavishya Pandit
Test Your Agent
Most failed agents weren’t dumb. They were just untested.
To design reliable systems, build:
Unit tests → individual tool calls
Simulated runs → end-to-end workflows
Metrics → task success, retries, hallucination rate
Logs → trace agent decisions for debugging
Test before you trust. Because your agent will only be as smart as your failure
modes allow.
Bhavishya Pandit
Liked it? Stay Ahead with Our Tech Newsletter! 🚀
👉 Join 1k+ leaders and professionals to stay ahead in GenAI!
🔗 https://bhavishyapandit9.substack.com/
Join our newsletter for:
Step-by-step guides to mastering complex topics
Industry trends & innovations delivered straight to your inbox
Actionable tips to enhance your skills and stay competitive
Insights on cutting-edge AI & software development
💡 Whether you're a developer, researcher, or tech enthusiast, this newsletter is your
shortcut to staying informed and ahead of the curve.
Bhavishya Pandit
Follow to stay updated on
Generative AI
LIKE COMMENT REPOST
Bhavishya Pandit
