Agent Patterns 101

Frameworks come and go. Patterns last. This course teaches the five agent patterns that show up in almost every production AI system built between 2024 and today: the tool-use loop, the planner-executor split, the critic pass, the router, and the multi-agent handoff.

For each pattern you will see a reference implementation, understand when to reach for it, and, more importantly, when not to. By the end you will have a mental library that lets you look at a new problem and immediately sketch a working architecture on a whiteboard.

This course is the direct prerequisite to the intermediate hackathon, where you will build a real agent on a real problem against a real deadline.