Skip to content

06 — Agentic AI

Level: Beginner to Advanced
Format: Prose + code + Q&A pairs tagged [Easy] [Medium] [Hard]

What You Will Learn

  • What an AI agent actually is and how it differs from a chatbot or workflow
  • How the agent loop works at the API level — what the LLM sees at every step
  • How function calling works, how to design good tools, and how to handle failures
  • The four memory types and how to manage context across long-horizon tasks
  • Planning and reasoning strategies: ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, Tree of Thoughts, Reflexion
  • The 8 architectural patterns and how to choose between them
  • The 5 core design patterns used across virtually all production agents
  • How multi-agent systems coordinate, communicate, and fail
  • The four major agent frameworks (LangGraph, ADK, CrewAI, AutoGen) and when to use each
  • Production system design: reliability, security, HITL, cost management
  • Trajectory evaluation and observability — how to measure and debug agent behavior
  • 40+ curated Q&A pairs covering all domains

Chapter Map

# File Topic Level
1 What Is an AI Agent Agent vs chatbot, autonomy spectrum, core properties, key vocabulary ★★☆ Beginner
2 The Agent Loop The core loop mechanics, what the LLM sees, ReAct, context growth, termination ★★☆ Beginner
3 Tool Use & Function Calling Function calling API, schema design, tool chaining, parallel calls, security ★★★ Intermediate
4 Memory & State 4 memory types, working memory, checkpointing, semantic memory, context management ★★★ Intermediate
5 Planning & Reasoning CoT, ReAct, Plan-and-Execute, Tree of Thoughts, FLARE, Reflexion, replanning ★★★ Intermediate
6 Architectural Patterns 8 patterns, HITL architectures, feedback loops, hybrid patterns, selection guide ★★★ Intermediate
7 Design Patterns Tool-use, Reflection, Planning, Coordination, Routing — behavior within patterns ★★★ Intermediate
8 Multi-Agent Systems Coordination strategies, communication protocols, state, failure modes, resilience ★★★ Advanced
9 Agent Frameworks LangGraph, ADK, CrewAI, AutoGen — internals, code examples, comparison matrix ★★★ Intermediate
10 Agentic System Design Production architecture, reliability engineering, security, cost, scalability ★★★★ Advanced
11 Evaluation & Observability Trajectory eval, LLM-as-judge, metrics, observability stack, debugging ★★★ Advanced
12 Q&A Review Bank 40 questions across 8 domains — concepts through production engineering ★★★

Path A — Full Progression (beginner to interview-ready)

Read chapters in order: 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → 6 → 7 → 8 → 9 → 10 → 11, then work through 12-Interview-QA-Bank.md. ~6–8 hours.

Path B — Accelerated (already understand LLM basics)

  1. What Is an AI Agent — vocabulary (30 min)
  2. The Agent Loop — the mechanics (45 min)
  3. Tool Use & Function Calling — building blocks (45 min)
  4. Architectural Patterns — structure (45 min)
  5. Agentic System Design — production (60 min)
  6. Q&A Review Bank — all 40 questions (90 min)

Path C — System Design Focus

  1. What Is an AI Agent — vocabulary
  2. The Agent Loop — understand what you're designing
  3. Agentic System Design — production architecture
  4. Architectural Patterns — structure options
  5. Multi-Agent Systems — coordination

Path D — Framework Focus (building something now)

  1. The Agent Loop — understand what frameworks wrap
  2. Tool Use & Function Calling — tool design
  3. Agent Frameworks — pick and use a framework
  4. Browse Code Labs — Agentic Systems

Path E — Weak spots only

Relationship to Other Sections

Section What It Covers Relationship to This Section
05 — Agents Framework-specific implementation (LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, ADK) How to build — this section is how to design
[06 — Agentic AI] System design, patterns, evaluation System-level view — concepts through production
Code Labs — Architecture Patterns Code implementations of the 8 architectural patterns Executable versions of the patterns in chapter 6
Code Labs — Agentic Systems End-to-end system designs in 4 frameworks Full implementations combining multiple concepts
System Designs Production-grade system designs with GCP mapping Applied versions of chapter 10

Resources

Previous: 05 — Agents | Back to Master Index