The Production Checklist for AI Agents
Most agent demos never survive contact with real users. Here is the checklist we run before any Velixor agent goes live.
Velixor Labs · 8 min read
Shipping an AI agent to production is a different discipline from building a demo.
1. Define the boundary
An agent needs an explicit contract: which tools it may call, which data it may read, and what it must escalate. We write this as a machine-readable policy before a single prompt is drafted.
2. Build the eval set first
Collect 100–300 real cases with expected outcomes. Without an eval set you cannot tell whether a prompt change is an improvement or a regression.
3. Structure every output
Free text is unverifiable. Structured outputs let you validate, retry and route deterministically.
4. Instrument everything
Log every tool call, token count and latency. Cost anomalies are usually the first sign of a reasoning loop.
5. Design the human handoff
The best agents know when to stop. Confidence gating plus a clean escalation path is what earns operational trust.
6. Ship narrow, then widen
Start with one workflow and one team. Expand only after the numbers hold for four consecutive weeks.