The 5-Layer Stack Behind Agents That Ship

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It collapses the first time production is messy timeouts, bad inputs, spend spikes, irreversible side effects. Layer 1 — Orchestrator The orchestrator decides the next step. Layer 2 — Tools Tools are clear APIs, not mystery side effects. Layer 4 — Guardrails Budget, permissions, PII, and stop conditions — before it runs wild. Design for undo: Prefer reversible writes Snapshot before mutate Compensating transactions when undo isn't free Clear "blast radius" for every tool An agent that can't roll back isn't a system.

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