How to build an AI agent?

@ · LinkedIn post · how-to-build-an-ai-a… original · 2026-07-12

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Start by getting specific: the use case, the user + what success looks like, before you touch a model.

Skip that and you’ll build something clever nobody needs.

Then write a tight system prompt (goals, persona, instructions, guardrails), since that’s where the agent’s judgment lives.

Choose your model based on context window, latency and cost.

Add tools and integrations.

Give it memory so it keeps context between sessions.

And build orchestration that routes tasks and handles errors.

Testing never really stops: unit tests, latency checks, quality metrics, ongoing iteration.

All of this reads simply enough on paper, but it plays out differently once you’re building against real, messy data 🫠

There’s a free course that walks through the entire process in Claude, using a working agent built step by step and made trustworthy along the way.

(Definitely) worth checking out:https://lnkd.in/eF6Jb53P Have you built an agent that stuck around after week one?

Or has your agent adventure not even started yet?..