Production Agent Architecture Methodology
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A methodology paper on selecting and composing runtime architecture patterns for production LLM agents. The core argument is that most teams accidentally let framework defaults make critical architecture decisions for them. The paper introduces the stochastic-deterministic boundary (SDB) as a named primitive and presents a six-pattern catalog organized by the three runtime concerns of coordination, state, and control.
Stochastic-deterministic boundary: A four-part contract of proposer, verifier, commit, and reject that marks where the LLM hands off to deterministic infrastructure. The paper inventories how five widely used open-source agent frameworks place this boundary, often implicitly.
Three-by-six pattern catalog: Six patterns organized along three orthogonal concerns. Coordination patterns answer how work splits and combines. State patterns answer how the system remembers. Control patterns answer who decides what runs and when to stop.
Patterns as deliberate choices: Each pattern has a typed-contract specification of input type, output type, deadline, retry budget, and partial-result policy. The catalog grows by passing this procedure rather than by adding ad-hoc abstractions.
Why it matters: Production agent failures rarely come from the LLM. They come from architectural choices that were made by default. The methodology gives teams a way to surface those choices and make them deliberately.
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