Agentic design patterns : a hands-on guide to building intelligent systems

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Prompt Chaining

2. Routing

3. Parallelization

4. Reflection

5. Tool Use

6. Planning

7. Multi-Agent

7. Memory Management

8. Learning and Adaptation

9. Model Context Protocol (MCP)

10. Goal Setting And Monitoring

11. Exception Handling and Recovery

12. Human-in-the-Loop

13. Knowledge Retrieval (RAG)

14. Inter-Agent Communication (A2A)

15. Resource-Aware Optimization

16. Reasoning Techniques

17. Guardrails/Safety Patterns

18. Evaluation and Monitoring

19. Prioritization

20. Exploration and Discovery

This book is a practical resource designed to help developers master the art of building sophisticated AI agents. As artificial intelligence evolves from simple reactive programs to autonomous entities capable of understanding context and making complex decisions, this book provides the essential patterns and proven techniques needed to construct intelligent systems effectively. Each of the 21 patterns represents a fundamental building block for creating agents that can perceive their environment, make informed decisions, and execute actions autonomously. Agentic Design Patterns: A Hands-On Guide to Building Intelligent Systems is structured as a comprehensive hands-on guide, with each chapter dedicated to a single agentic pattern. Within each chapter, you will find a detailed pattern overview, practical applications and use cases, a hands-on code example, and key takeaways for quick review. From foundational concepts such as Prompt Chaining and Tool Use to advanced topics like Multi-Agent Collaboration and Self-Correction, readers will gain practical knowledge they can immediately apply. While the chapters build on each other, you can also use the book as a handy reference, jumping to patterns that address your specific challenges. To provide a tangible "canvas" for the code examples, this guide utilizes three prominent agent development frameworks: LangChain and its extension LangGraph, which offer a flexible way to build complex operational sequences; Crew AI, which provides a structured framework for orchestrating multiple agents; and the Google Agent Developer Kit (Google ADK), which offers tools for building, evaluating, and deploying agents. By showcasing examples across these tools, you will gain a broad understanding of how these patterns can be applied in any technical environment. Building effective agentic systems requires more than just a powerful language model; it demands structure and design. Agentic patterns provide reusable, battle-tested solutions to common challenges, much like design patterns in software engineering. They offer a common language that makes an agent's logic clearer, more maintainable, and more robust. By the end of this journey, you will possess both the theoretical understanding and the practical skills to implement these 21 essential patterns, enabling you to build more intelligent, capable, and autonomous systems on your chosen development canvas. The cover image is AI-generated.