Building Your Agent Team
Designing and deploying your first multi-agent system — from blueprint to production.
What You'll Learn
- A step-by-step framework for building multi-agent systems
- How to go from workflow analysis to working prototype
- Testing strategies for agent teams
- The iteration cycle that turns prototypes into production systems
Map the Workflow Before Writing a Single Prompt
Start with the end goal and work backwards. What's the final output? What inputs does it need? What transformations happen between input and output? Draw the entire workflow as a sequence of steps before deciding which steps become agents.
The common mistake: Jumping straight to agent design. If you don't understand the workflow deeply, you'll build agents for the wrong things. Spend more time here than feels necessary.
Identify the Agent Boundaries
Look at your workflow map. Where do skills change? Where could you hand off to a specialist? Those transition points are your agent boundaries. Group related steps into single agents. Split steps that require fundamentally different capabilities.
Start with 2-3 agents. You can always add more. Systems that launch with 8 agents usually should have launched with 3 and evolved. Complexity is the enemy of reliability.
Write the Agent Specifications
For each agent, define: its role (one sentence), its system prompt, its expected inputs and outputs, its model tier, and its failure behavior. This is your agent's contract with the rest of the system.
Agent Specification Template
Name: Research Agent
Role: Gather and synthesize information from provided sources
Model: Sonnet 4.6 (needs reasoning, not max capability)
System prompt: "You are a research specialist. Given a topic and sources, extract key findings. Output structured JSON with findings, confidence scores, and source citations. Never speculate beyond the data. Never write final copy."
Input: { topic: string, sources: string[] }
Output: { findings: Finding[], confidence: number }
On failure: Return partial findings with low confidence flag
Build and Test Each Agent in Isolation
Before connecting agents, test each one independently. Feed it realistic inputs. Check that outputs match the expected format. Stress test with edge cases: empty inputs, massive inputs, ambiguous requests, contradictory data.
Test criteria: Does the output match the schema? Does the agent stay in its lane (no role bleed)? Does it handle failures gracefully? Run at least 20 varied test cases per agent before integrating.
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