What you actually need to ship an AI agent (opens in new tab)

Everyone's building agents. Half of them are running. The other half have "active plans." I've been in both camps. The difference isn't the model. Models have been good enough for a while now. It's everything around the model that nobody talks about in tutorials because tutorials end when the demo works. This is the stuff that bit me. Take it or leave it. Why build an agent at all Worth asking before you pick a framework. The cases where agents actually make sense — and I mean actually get us...