4. What technologies are used to build Agentic Agents?
Building an Agentic Agent involves orchestrating several complementary technologies — including large language models, memory systems, planning engines, tool integration layers, and event-driven execution frameworks. These components work together to simulate autonomy, memory, adaptability, and purpose-driven behavior.
⚙️ Core Technology Stack Overview
- LLM (Large Language Model): The reasoning engine — processes natural language, generates responses, plans actions, and performs inference.
- Memory System: Stores past experiences, goals, interactions, and facts using vector databases or custom memory layers.
- Planner/Controller: Generates action plans based on goals; breaks them down into steps (sometimes hierarchically).
- Tool Integration Layer: Enables interaction with external APIs, scripts, environments, and databases.
- Event Loop or Agent Runtime: Keeps the agent “alive” across sessions, manages timing, schedules tasks, and supports reactivity.
🧠 Core Language Model Options
- OpenAI GPT-4 / GPT-4o – Popular, robust reasoning and tool-use capabilities (via function calling).
- Anthropic Claude – Excellent for reflective reasoning and long-context tasks.
- Google Gemini – Great for multimodal and grounded tasks.
- Mistral / Mixtral – Lightweight open-source alternatives with agent use cases.
- LLaMA 3 / Orca / Zephyr – Open models often used for fine-tuning agent behaviors.
🧩 Memory Layer Technologies
- Vector DBs:
Pinecone
,Weaviate
,Chroma
,Qdrant
— store and retrieve embeddings of past interactions. - Structured Memory: Use JSON, YAML, or SQL for storing state, goals, timelines, and history.
- Hybrid Systems: Combine vector and relational storage to track semantic and factual knowledge.
🔧 Tool Use & Function Interfaces
- LangChain Tooling: Wraps functions, APIs, and I/O operations as callable tools by the agent.
- OpenAI Function Calling: Natively supports JSON-based tool schemas.
- Serverless MCP (Model Context Protocol): Emerging standard for agent-safe tool access via microservices.
- Browser/Terminal Agents: Use Puppeteer, Playwright, or subprocess runners for web or CLI automation.
🧠 Planning and Control Strategies
- ReAct (Reason + Act): Chain-of-thought prompting with action execution in loops.
- BabyAGI: Loop-based task execution with memory and recursive goal creation.
- Task Decomposition: Agents that break large goals into smaller plans (e.g., hierarchical planners).
- Self-Reflective Agents: Use prompts like “Was this effective?” or “Should I revise my plan?”
🏗️ Frameworks and Libraries
- LangChain: Framework for LLM agents with memory, tool use, and chains.
- CrewAI: Agent collaboration and role-based tasking system.
- OpenAgents: Meta’s multi-agent coordination and execution framework.
- Semantic Kernel (Microsoft): .NET/JS/Java toolkit for agent memory and skills.
- AutoGen (Microsoft): Multi-agent orchestration library based on collaborative AI.
🗃️ Storage & State Persistence
- JSON/YAML: Lightweight persistent store for single-agent state.
- PostgreSQL/SQLite: For structured plans, identities, and agent memories.
- Redis: Fast key-value caching and state tracking for live agents.
🔐 Agent Safety & Governance Tools
- Guardrails.ai / Rebuff.ai: Set boundaries for prompt output and function calls.
- Prompt Injection Defense: Regex filters, role segmentation, and authorization gates.
- Telemetry Dashboards: Monitor agent actions, tool use, and memory reads.
🚀 Full Example Stack (Simple Agent)
- LLM: GPT-4 via OpenAI API
- Memory: Chroma vector DB + JSON plan tracker
- Planning: ReAct-style CoT reasoning
- Tool Use: LangChain Python tools (search, file, email)
- Orchestration: CrewAI with scheduled loops
📘 Summary
Agentic agents are powered by a layered tech stack that integrates language understanding, memory, planning, tooling, and scheduling. While the LLM is at the heart of it all, the supporting infrastructure — memory systems, function interfaces, and control logic — is what makes these agents capable of persistent, autonomous, and intelligent behavior.