Applied AI
By the end you'll know when to use a single agent versus a multi-agent system, what observability requires, and the failure modes that don't show up in toy demos.
4 steps · ~20 minutes of reading total
The agent architecture decision
EmpiricaThe single-vs-multi-agent decision, framed around failure tolerance, observability, and whether subtasks are actually independent.
Milestone: you can name three failure modes only multi-agent systems have
MilestoneIf you can't name them, you don't yet know whether your design is single or multi by accident.
Anthropic — Building effective agents
Anthropic ↗First-principles framing on when to use workflows vs agents. Worth reading in full before committing to either.
The real cost of LLM API calls
EmpiricaAgent loops multiply token usage in ways that aren't obvious from a small demo. Architecture choices have direct cost consequences.