代理工程：一种新学科

If you’ve built an agent, you know that the delta between “it works on my machine” and “it works in production” can be huge. Traditional software assumes you mostly know the inputs and can define the outputs. Agents give you neither: users can say literally anything, and the space of possible behaviors is wide open. That’s why they’re powerful — and why they can also go a little sideways in ways you didn’t see coming.

如果你构建了一个代理，你就知道“它在我的机器上工作”和“它在生产中工作”之间的差距可能很大。传统软件假设你大致知道输入并可以定义输出。代理既不给你输入，也不给你输出：用户可以说任何事情，可能的行为空间是完全开放的。这就是它们强大的原因——也是它们可能以你意想不到的方式出现偏差的原因。

Over the past 3 years, we’ve watched thousands of teams struggle with this reality. The ones who’ve succeeded in shipping something reliable to production — companies like Clay, Vanta, LinkedIn, and Cloudflare — aren’t following the traditional software playbook. They’re pioneering something new: agent engineering.

在过去的三年中，我们看到成千上万的团队在这一现实中挣扎。那些成功将可靠产品交付到生产中的团队——如Clay、Vanta、LinkedIn和Cloudflare等公司——并没有遵循传统的软件手册。他们正在开创一种新的事物：代理工程。

What is agent engineering?

什么是代理工程？

Agent engineering is the iterative process of refining non-deterministic LLM systems into reliable production experiences. It is a cyclical process: build, test, ship, observe, refine, repeat.

代理工程是将非确定性LLM系统精炼为可靠生产体验的迭代过程。这是一个循环过程：构建、测试、交付、观察、精炼、重复。

The key here is that shipping isn't the end goal. It’s just the way you keep moving to get new insights and improve your agent. To make improvements that matter, you need to understand what’s happening in production. The faster you move through this cycle, the more reliable your agent becomes.

关键在于，发货并不是最终目标。这只是你不断前进以获取新见解和改进代理的方式。要进行重要的改进，你需要了解生产中发生的事情。你在这个循环中移动得越快，你的代理就变得越可靠。

We see agent engineering as a new discipline that combines 3 skillsets working together:

我们将代理工程视为一种新学科，结合了三种技能组合：

• Product thinking defines the scope and shapes agent behavior. This involves:
  • Writing prompts that drive agent behavior (often hundreds or thousands of lines). Good communication and writing skills are key here.
  • Deeply understanding the "job to be done" that the agen...