Build Systems, Not Code - Angie Jones, Agentic AI Foundation
Jun 25, 2026 · 19:39
Angie Jones (Agentic AI Foundation) argues that engineering discipline remains essential when building agentic systems, moving the joy of building from writing code to designing system architecture. Using her Relocation Scout house-hunting agent as an example, she walks through applying skills like systems thinking, workflow design, decomposition, separation of concerns, modularity, and algorithmic thinking. She advises using code for deterministic tasks like commute calculation, agents for judgment on listings, and humans for authority to approve tours. Jones stresses defining structured contracts between components, designing for idempotency with memory logging, and threat modeling to treat all external input as untrusted. She advocates baking maintainability into the system with self-documenting workflows so that any agent or human can orient themselves without reverse-engineering prompts.
