What an Agent Really Is

Forget everything you've seen in AI demos.

An agent isn't magic. It's a loop:

That's it. Let me break it down:

SENSE: The agent receives input

• A message from you
• A scheduled trigger (cron)
• A periodic check (heartbeat)
• An event from a tool

THINK: The agent uses an LLM to reason

• Reads its soul (who am I?)
• Reads its memory (what do I know?)
• Reads the input (what's being asked?)
• Decides what to do

ACT: The agent takes action

• Responds with text
• Calls a tool (browser, files, API)
• Spawns a sub-agent
• Schedules future work

REMEMBER: The agent updates memory

• Logs what happened
• Stores important facts
• Updates working state

REPEAT: The loop continues

• Waiting for next input
• Running scheduled tasks
• Monitoring for changes

This loop is what separates a real agent from a chatbot.

A chatbot does: SENSE → THINK → RESPOND An agent does: SENSE → THINK → ACT → REMEMBER → REPEAT

The "ACT" and "REMEMBER" parts are what make agents useful. Without them, you just have a fancy autocomplete.