How to build your first business agent

This course is not about building a spectacular agent. It helps you create a small, useful, testable and controllable system, then decide honestly whether it deserves a wider rollout.

The method in six decisions

Choose one task, not an entire job. “Draft replies to refund requests” is testable; “automate support” is not.
Measure before automating. Record current volume, time, cost and errors.
Choose the simplest system. Use a rule when a rule works, a workflow when steps are known, and an agent only when the path or tool must genuinely be selected from context.
Limit its power. Start with one source, one tool and read- or draft-only permissions.
Test before trusting. Include normal, ambiguous, incomplete, malicious and tool-failure cases.
Run a small pilot. Set an owner, duration, budget, quality metric, incident log and stop rule.

Workflow or agent?

If…	Start with…
the correct answer is a stable rule	a function or conventional automation
all steps are known in advance	a deterministic workflow, with an LLM step only if needed
the system must dynamically choose tools or paths	an agent with iteration limits and least privilege
the action can harm someone, spend money or cannot be undone	a proposal or draft followed by human approval

What “safe” means here

A safe agent is not one that never makes mistakes. Its mistakes are contained, visible and recoverable: least privilege, deny by default, validated outputs, cost and iteration limits, useful traces, minimal data and a named owner.

How to use the five levels

Level 1 — Frame: task, user, baseline and limits.
Level 2 — Specify: instructions, examples, expected format and fixed test set.
Level 3 — Design: workflow or agent, one model decision, one tool, one output.
Level 4 — Secure: threat, permissions, approval, stopping, traces and data.
Level 5 — Operate: metric, total cost, owner, pilot and go/no-go decision.

Then open My journey. The mission workbook stores these decisions and exports them as Markdown.

A training byBaxIA