Many agent demos begin with a model, a tool list, and a loop. Production problems begin as soon as the loop has authority, state, and time.
The 12-week Agent Systems roadmap starts with the small mechanics: structured output, tool calling, bounded agent loops, memory, and MCP integrations. The step-limit exercise is deliberately basic. A loop that cannot explain when it stops is not ready for more tools.
The next phase introduces coordination, explicit communication interfaces, and browser or computer use. These topics are grouped because coordination is not just adding more agents. Each participant needs a contract for messages, ownership, failure, and handoff. Computer use raises the cost of ambiguity because the tool can act on a real interface with state the model may not fully observe.
The final four weeks focus on durability and control. Long-running work needs persisted state, resumable execution, scheduled triggers, permission boundaries, and safe recovery after partial failure. A sandbox limits what an agent can touch. Durable execution limits what a crash can erase. Both are part of correctness.
The synthesis artifact asks the learner to combine these pieces into one system and test its failure modes. A useful result should show what the agent can do, which actions require authority, where state lives, how retries behave, and how an operator can stop or inspect the run.
Starting with bounded loops keeps the design honest. Autonomy is not the number of iterations a model can run. It is the amount of useful work the system can complete while its scope, state, and failure behavior remain legible.
The roadmap is at https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/roadmaps/agent-systems-12w.
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