Production
PoC agents work in front of their author. Production agents work without one. This lesson is the loop that bridges the gap: instrument what the agent does, guard what it can do, roll out changes carefully, and keep cost predictable — then iterate every time reality teaches you something new.
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The PoC-to-production gap
Most agent demos succeed in controlled settings and fail in production. The recurring causes:
- Non-determinism — Same input, different output
- Latency — Multi-step loops add seconds to minutes
- Cost surprises — Unbounded loops and large contexts make spend unpredictable
- Reliability — Multi-step workflows fail in more ways than single requests
- Discovery lag — Weak telemetry leaves users to report failures first
Each is a symptom of the same thing: in the demo, a human filled in for the missing infrastructure. Production replaces the human with deliberate scaffolding around the agent.
The production loop
The scaffolding is a closed loop. Each turn improves the agent or the loop itself.
The next five sections walk one step at a time.