Pattern Selection and Composition

Architecture Before Autonomy Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Architecture Before Autonomy explains why ownership, policy, state, evals, and rollback should come before adding agentic behavior.

Choosing the Right Pattern Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Choosing the Right Pattern helps you select the least agentic architecture that can meet the workload with acceptable quality, cost, latency, and risk.

Pattern Evaluation Checklist Reference · Intermediate 10-20 min reference Architect · Reviewer

The evaluation checklist turns pattern choice into reviewable evidence: use cases, avoid cases, failure modes, evals, and release blockers.

From Patterns To Systems Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

This chapter shows how individual patterns compose into systems with explicit state, tools, policy, evals, runtime, and ownership.

Pattern Composition Playbook Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

The playbook shows common pattern combinations and the controls needed when loops, tools, memory, routing, and evaluation meet.

Prompt Chaining and Gates Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Prompt Chaining and Gates covers fixed multi-step model workflows where software validates each stage before the next one runs.

Routing and Handoffs Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Routing and Handoffs explains how to send work to the right model, tool, agent, policy, or human without hiding authority boundaries.

Resource-Aware Agent Design Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Resource-Aware Agent Design helps bound token use, latency, tool calls, model choice, retries, and operating cost before autonomy expands.

Circuit Breakers, Fallbacks, and Replay Guide · Intermediate 10-20 min read Architect · Reviewer

Circuit Breakers, Fallbacks, and Replay describes the controls that stop bad runs, preserve evidence, and recover from failure.

Source Map Reference · Intermediate 10-20 min reference Architect · Reviewer

The Source Map connects external agent-pattern references to this book’s chapters and explains how each source informs the catalog.