LOCKEDIN / FORWARD-DEPLOYED ENGINEERING 101
Understand it.
Then build it.
You can be an experienced engineer and still be new to agents. Start with what each thing is and how it helps a person do useful work. Explore 48 original introductions across software, agents, cloud, security and delivery. Start here without a model key; each topic connects to deeper instruction and practice.
- 101UnderstandPlain language, visual walkthrough, vocabulary
- 102Build with guidanceOriginal lessons, examples and knowledge checks
- 103Practise and explainRunnable labs, failure cases and handover
- 01Evaluate behavior
- 02Deploy a limited version
- 03Observe and recover
An engineering practice
What is agentic engineering?
Agentic engineering means designing, building, testing and operating software that uses AI agents. It includes the code around the model: tool access, data handling, workflow control, evaluation and recovery. It is an engineering practice, not a product or a single framework.
A useful demonstration must become a dependable service. An FDE needs to know whether it gives supported answers, respects access, handles failures and can be operated by the receiving team.
CONNECT IT TO WHAT YOU KNOW
Start with something familiar.
Apply the same discipline you would to an enterprise service, with extra attention to uncertain model output, tool authority and changing context.
An agent demo shows possibility. Engineering evidence establishes what the complete system does under normal, hostile and interrupted conditions.
Words worth knowing
- Evaluation
- Checking results against stated criteria using representative tasks.
- Trace
- A record of the steps taken while processing one request.
- Deployment
- Putting a version of the software into its operating environment.
- Rollback
- Returning to a previously working version when the new one is unsafe or unusable.
ONE EXAMPLE / FICTIONAL CASE
Watch the work take shape.
The maintenance assistant works on your laptop. Before another team relies on it, try an unauthorized request, a missing procedure and a tool outage. Decide who investigates failures and how the team returns to the previous version.
- 01Evaluate behavior
- 02Deploy a limited version
- 03Observe and recover
Evaluate behavior
Try representative tasks and difficult cases. Evaluation is checking whether the application does the right thing, not just whether its code runs.
Visible evidence of useful results and failuresFROM RECOGNITION TO REASONING
Write the release conditions for one agent workflow.
- 01
Define a useful task and an unacceptable action.
- 02
Describe a tool outage and how the service stops or recovers.
- 03
Name the receiving owner and the evidence they need before accepting it.
A short release checklist grounded in observable behavior.
Compare your reasoning when you are ready
Evaluate the whole workflow, not just fluent answers. A correct draft is insufficient if the system leaks data, duplicates work or cannot recover a pending decision.
Keep notes in your own working copy. Moving through these cards does not record completion.
TURN THE IDEA INTO USEFUL WORK
You can now go deeper.
Building an agent is one part. Agentic engineering includes proving, releasing and maintaining the whole application.
Academy lessons use your existing training access. Free guides stay open.