Building Persistent AI Agents: A Dev's Guide to State Management and Long-Running Workflows (opens in new tab)

The Problem with Stateless Agents Most AI agents we build today are essentially fancy request-response systems. User asks, agent responds, context dies. Rinse and repeat. But what happens when you need an agent that can start a workflow on Monday, wait for external approval on Wednesday, and resume execution on Friday — all while maintaining perfect context? That's the shift from chatbots to persistent agents. And it changes everything about how we architect AI systems. What Makes an Agent "P...