CourseAI System Design: The Complete Course · Module 9: Agentic Architecture · part 61 of 107
Part 61 · Module 9: Agentic Architecture

Lesson 1: Design decisions for a bounded agent

34 min read·
Module 9 · Lesson 1 · About 60 minutes · Needs: Module 4 lesson 1 (the ladder), Module 3 lessons 2 and 6 (tokens per step, hard ceilings), Module 8 lesson 1 (state machines). One optional block calls a hosted model

The situation

Week 9, 28 December 2026. ADR-001 put Cases on the bounded-agent rung; now the bounds need writing down. Leila asks what it may do without a person, Ana what a stuck run costs, Gareth how a run stops and who checks "done".

The running example is Tallis Retail Group's golden task C012: an operations employee, Maya Ortiz (t-tallis-u029), writes "Order me a second monitor for working from home."

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