Exercises — Module 08: Architecture patterns
8.1 — Reverse-engineer an architecture
Pick a real agent product. Write a one-page description of its architecture, inferred from its behavior and any public docs. Identify the shape (Module 08 §2), the product surface, and at least two trade-offs you think the team made.
Deliverable: one-page architecture doc.
8.2 — Greenfield design
You are the harness architect for a new agent that operates on a corporate inbox (reads new email, drafts replies, flags urgent items). Produce:
- A chosen architectural shape, with rationale.
- The agent graph.
- A list of the first five tools.
- The first three safety rails.
- The first three evals you would build.
Deliverable: a design doc.
8.3 — Compare shapes
Pick a task. Implement it two ways: single-agent loop, and router+specialists. Compare on a 20-case eval: cost, latency, quality, code complexity.
Deliverable: the two implementations and a comparison writeup.
8.4 — Observability from zero
Take a harness that has only print-statements. Add:
- OpenTelemetry tracing with spans for model calls and tools.
- Structured logs per turn.
- A metric for task success, cost, latency, per-tool error rate.
- A local dashboard (anything — Grafana, a spreadsheet).
Deliverable: code + screenshot.
8.5 — Migration drill
Your provider deprecates your model and you need to migrate. Without having access to a real deprecation, simulate one: switch models, see what breaks, fix, document. Now write the playbook you wish you had had.
Deliverable: the playbook.