AI agents explained

Agents as loops of observe, act, and verify—plus where they fail without engineering discipline.

An AI agent here means software that uses a language model to decide what to do next in a loop—not a static automation script with fixed steps.

Core loop

Observe — read tickets, files, logs, or UI state
Plan — decompose the goal (often with a written spec)
Act — edit code, run commands, open PRs, or call APIs
Verify — tests, lint, diff review, or human approval

Failure modes we design around

Hallucinated APIs — agents invent functions that do not exist
Scope creep — touching unrelated files
Silent risk — secrets, destructive commands, or license violations

Mitigations: least-privilege tools, allowed-path lists, CI, and explicit spec-driven development.

Not the same as “agentic website builders”

Consumer site builders that publish hosted pages are covered on our Agentic AI Website child site. PunkSolid agents target your repository and deployment pipeline.

Next: What is agentic AI?