Agent Builder Lab

09:00 – 10:15

Draw the line between agent and everything else

—AI vs GenAI vs automation vs agentic, the agent loop, honest definitions

—Takeaway Four real systems classified correctly — including the "agent" that is actually a cron job.

10:30 – 11:45

Hunt for agentic use cases in real work

—use-case discovery, scoring value vs risk, the toolkit

—Takeaway Your own work mined for candidates and scored — a ranked shortlist, not a brainstorm.

12:00 – 13:00

Decide what each problem actually needs

—prompt vs automation vs workflow vs agent, cost of agency

—Takeaway Each shortlisted case routed to the cheapest thing that solves it — most are not agents, and that is the lesson.

14:00 – 15:15

Design the agent before building it

—goal and success criteria, tool boundaries, approval points

—Takeaway A one-page agent design — goal, tools, boundaries, approvals, success criteria — reviewed by the room.

15:30 – 17:00

Stand up the skeleton

—the agent loop implemented, first tool, first trace

—Takeaway The loop running with one tool — and its first trace read line by line.

09:00 – 10:15

Give it real tools

—tool selection, schemas the model uses well, MCP tools

—Takeaway The agent choosing correctly between three tools — because the schemas made the choice easy.

10:30 – 11:45

Add state and constraints

—task state, budgets and stop conditions, runaway prevention

—Takeaway A budget and stop condition that end a runaway loop — triggered on purpose, stopped on cue.

12:00 – 13:00

Put a human where it matters

—approval gates, consequential actions, escalation

—Takeaway The agent pausing for approval before the irreversible step — and proceeding cleanly after it.

14:00 – 15:15

Test against failure, not just success

—failure scenarios, tool errors, wrong-tool recovery

—Takeaway The agent surviving a failing tool and a misleading input — behaviour verified, not hoped for.

15:30 – 17:00

Template it for the next one

—the design template, demo, what a second agent would reuse

—Takeaway Your agent demoed, and the reusable design template that makes the second agent a day's work.