A 9-step roadmap from one bloated prompt to a maintainable agentic system
MaryamMiradi · x · 2026-09-12
AI coding tools can generate an agent fast, but once it must remember, call tools, retry failures, coordinate subtasks, and ask humans for approval, you are designing a software system.
The author lays out a 9-step roadmap from one bloated prompt to a maintainable agentic system (tools change, system discipline doesn't):
- Define the system boundary: job, dependencies, inputs, failure modes — the agent is one component, not the whole system.
- Design the workflow: give the agent a path, not just a goal — gather → evaluate → act → stop, retry, or escalate.
- Decompose the giant prompt: extraction, scoring, research, and formatting should not live in one monolith.
- Put logic in code/subsequent steps (post truncated beyond this point).
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