Section guide

Systems Architecture

Reference architectures for agentic services, RAG, coding, personal agents, and domains.

Use when designing full systems, services, reference architectures, or domain agents.

Start with Agentic System Architecture
Finish with Reference Architecture
Reader outcome

Leave with deployable system boundaries for services, domains, RAG, coding, and reference architectures.

Reusable artifact

A service boundary with ADRs, data/control flow, owners, and reference architecture.

Reading order

9 chapters
  1. 01
    Agentic System Architecture Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Agentic System Architecture maps how loops, tools, memory, policy, evals, runtime, and product services fit into one system.
  2. 02
    Agents As Services Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Agents As Services explains how to package agent behavior behind APIs, queues, contracts, observability, and operational ownership.
  3. 03
    Agentic RAG Systems Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Agentic RAG Systems shows how retrieval, planning, evidence checks, refusal, and escalation work together in source-grounded answers.
  4. 04
    Open Personal Agent Architectures Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Open Personal Agent Architectures explores user-owned agents with explicit consent, local context, safe tools, memory boundaries, and portability.
  5. 05
    Coding Agents Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Coding Agents covers agent loops for software work: repository context, planning, edits, tests, review, handoff, and rollback.
  6. 06
    Computer-Use Agents Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Computer-Use Agents explains how to govern screen-based actions with observation limits, action spaces, approvals, traces, and recovery.
  7. 07
    Domain Agent Architectures Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Domain Agent Architectures shows how to constrain agents in high-stakes fields with policy, evidence, reviewer roles, and domain ownership.
  8. 08
    Architecture Decision Records Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    Architecture Decision Records make agentic design choices reviewable when authority, tools, memory, evals, or rollback change.
  9. 09
    Reference Architecture Guide · Advanced 20-35 min design review Architect · Operator

    The reference architecture defines production ownership boundaries around models, tools, policy, state, memory, evals, approvals, and traces.