Background Agents

Up to now, every agent has waited for someone to ask. But the most useful assistant is the one that notices a problem first. An email comes in from the courier, saying that an order is delayed. Why wait for the customer to complain? A background agent watches for events, and gets to work by itself.

• So far, agents waited to be asked
• A useful one notices first
• It watches for events

Watching an event stream

Here's a simple watcher. On each tick, it looks for new events. A cheap check decides whether each one matters. Most don't. If one does, the agent prepares a draft, and leaves it for a person to review. Run it. The courier's message was flagged, and a draft is ready. The supplier's catalogue was ignored. Notice what's safe about this design. It prepares work, and it doesn't send it. A person wakes up to finished drafts. That's the pattern to start with.

import time

INBOX = [{"from": "courier", "text": "Depot closed, order B42 delayed by two days"},
         {"from": "supplier", "text": "New catalogue attached"}]

def triage(event):
    if "delayed" in event["text"]:
        return "needs_action"
    return "ignore"

def handle(event):
    return f"Draft ready for review: tell the customer about {event['text'][:24]}..."

seen = 0
for tick in range(2):
    new = INBOX[seen:]
    seen = len(INBOX)
    for event in new:
        kind = triage(event)
        print(f"Tick {tick}: {event['from']:<9} -> {kind}")
        if kind == "needs_action":
            print(" ", handle(event))
    time.sleep(0.01)

Tick 0: courier   -> needs_action
  Draft ready for review: tell the customer about Depot closed, order B42 ...
Tick 0: supplier  -> ignore

Rules for unattended agents

Nobody's watching these agents, so the limits matter even more. Use a cheap filter first, so that you're not paying for a model on each event. Set a daily budget. Don't let an event trigger itself in a loop. Prepare drafts rather than taking actions. And send a daily summary of what it did, so that people stay informed.

Summary