Interactive playbook · no email required

The agentic AI playbook: 6 phases, 6 weeks.

Most AI agents look great in a demo and break in production. This is the AI agent development process I run inside every AI Product Sprint: architecture, eval suites and cost routing, with the real code and YAML from paying engagements.

Explore the 6 phases
Time to production
4–6 weeks
Eval gate
92%+ pass rate
Rollout
5% → 100%, flagged
Team
One architect, no handoffs
Same playbook behind
  • 40% CSAT lift, Fortune 500 contact center
  • 3 weeks to ship Workly v1
  • $14K → $5K monthly LLM bill
What's inside

The methodology behind every Sprint, Rescue and Retainer.

No forms, no email capture. Step through the phases, read the real snippets, and take the template with you.

The spec template from every Sprint

The exact config for routing, guards and evaluators I ship inside an AI Product Sprint ($30–60K). Free to download.

The diagnostic behind every Audit

The framework from the Production Audit ($3,500): the five boring failures most failing agents have in common.

The cost-routing snippets

The routing logic behind a recent client’s LLM bill going from $14K to $5K a month in nine days.

Interactive

The 6-phase agent delivery workflow.

Phase 01 · Week 1

Discovery — map the agent's job

Before writing a single line of LangGraph code, we define exactly what the agent must do, what it must never do, and how we will measure success. Most failed agent projects skip this and pay for it in week 4.

Inputs
  • Existing process docs / SOPs
  • Sample inputs (tickets, calls, transcripts)
  • Stakeholder interviews (1–2 hrs)
Outputs
  • Agent job spec (1–2 pages)
  • Success criteria + eval rubric
  • 20–50 labeled test cases
  • Notion
  • Otter.ai
  • Google Sheets
agent_spec.yaml
# agent_spec.yaml
name: support_triage
in: customer_message
out: { intent, priority, action, confidence }
must_never:
  - escalate_to_billing_without_account_id
  - reveal_internal_tooling
eval_pass_threshold: 0.92
At a glance

Every phase ends in a gate you can check.

The whole AI agent development process on one screen: what happens, what you get, and what has to be true before the next phase starts.

  1. 01Week 1

    Discovery

    Before writing a single line of LangGraph code, we define exactly what the agent must do, what it must never do, and how we will measure success.

    • Agent job spec (1–2 pages)
    • Success criteria + eval rubric
    • 20–50 labeled test cases
    20–50labeled test cases ship before code starts
  2. 02Weeks 1–2

    Architecture

    Single agent? Supervisor + workers? RAG + tools? The wrong pattern is unrecoverable later.

    • Architecture decision record (ADR)
    • State diagram + tool inventory
    • Model selection per node
    1ADR — written, signed, version-controlled
  3. 03Weeks 2–4

    Build

    LangGraph nodes, tool wrappers, prompts, retrieval.

    • Working agent on dev environment
    • Tool/prompt/node test coverage
    • Internal demo build
    E2Evertical slice running by end of week 2
  4. 04Weeks 3–4

    Eval & test

    Without an eval suite, you cannot tell a good day from a bad day, and every model release breaks something silently.

    • Auto-running eval pipeline
    • Pass/fail dashboard
    • Regression alert hooks
    92%+pass-rate gate before any deploy to prod
  5. 05Weeks 4–5

    Deploy

    We ship to production behind a feature flag at 5% traffic.

    • Production deployment
    • Observability dashboards
    • Runbook + rollback procedure
    5%→100%gated rollout — rollback = 1 flag flip
  6. 06Week 5+

    Optimize

    Once stable, we tighten.

    • Optimized routing layer
    • Cache hit-rate dashboard
    • Monthly cost report
    50–70%cost reduction in first 4–6 weeks post-launch

Have an agent in mind? Let’s map it to the playbook.

I’ll map your workflow to the 6 phases, flag the high-risk failure modes, and tell you straight which offer fits. If your situation is buy-not-build, I’ll tell you that too.

Book a 30-min scoping call
What happens after you book
  1. A 30-minute call, no sales deck
  2. Your workflow mapped to the 6 phases
  3. A straight answer on which offer fits, if any