🕮 End to End Agent Development Guide

🎯 Purpose

This guide explains the complete lifecycle of agent development — from defining business requirements to testing the final implementation. It ensures every agent is aligned with business objectives, technically sound, and maintainable at scale.

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1

Step 1 — Define Business Requirements

1.1 Clarify Objectives

Start with a clear, concise description of what problem the agent solves and why it matters.

Example: “Automate weekly report creation to remove repetitive manual steps and ensure consistency.”

1.2 Define Functional Requirements (FR)

Each FR must be testable, traceable, and measurable.

FR Code	Name	Description	Acceptance Criteria
FR-001	Agent Creation	Allow creation of new report agents from spreadsheet configuration	New agents created per row entry
FR-002	Template Copy	Generate report documents from predefined templates	Generated file matches template and naming rule
FR-003	Reminder Trigger	Send reminders to PICs before deadline	Reminder email sent on schedule
FR-004	Delivery Mechanism	Auto-deliver final reports to recipients	Reports delivered successfully
FR-005	Audit Logging	Log all scheduled runs and delivery status.	Logs retrievable for review and compliance.

Use an SDD (Spec Driven Development) approach to capture user scenarios, acceptance criteria, functional requirements, and key entities. Please refer to this as an example.

1.3 Create Business Flow

Draw a flowchart showing the overall lifecycle before diving into details. This makes it easy to identify reusable components across agents.

For example:

flowchart TD

%% Main Scheduler Flow
P0([Start]) --> A0
A0[Scheduler Trigger] --> A1[Load Runtime Config from Spreadsheet]
A1 --> A2{Stage Type}
A2 -->|Creation Stage| B0[Create Report Flow]
A2 -->|Reminder Stage| C0[Reminder Flow]
A2 -->|Deliver Stage| D0[Share Report Flow]

%% CREATE REPORT FLOW
subgraph B0 [Create Weekly Report Flow]
    B1[Initialize Config & Validate Template]
    B2[Setup Folder Structure in Drive]
    B3[Copy Template & Generate New Report]
    B4[Notify PICs via Email to Fill Report]
    B1 --> B2 --> B3 --> B4
end

%% REMINDER FLOW
subgraph C0 [Reminder Flow]
    C1[Initialize Config]
    C2[Locate Report Document in Drive]
    C3{Report Found?}
    C3 -->|No| C4[Return Error Log → Missing Report]
    C3 -->|Yes| C5[Send Reminder to PIC]
    C1 --> C2 --> C3
end

%% SHARE REPORT FLOW
subgraph D0 [Share/Delivery Flow]
    D1[Initialize Config]
    D2[Retrieve Filled Report Content]
    D3{Report Valid?}
    D3 -->|No| D4[Return Error Log → Incomplete Content]
    D3 -->|Yes| D5[Compile & Distribute to Recipients]
    D5 --> D6[Log Delivery Status to AIP Audit Log]
    D1 --> D2 --> D3
end

%% COMMON ELEMENTS
subgraph E0 [Common Error Handling]
    E1[Log Failure in Audit Logs]
end


%% Flow Connections
B4 --> C0
C5 --> D0
D6 --> F0[Success ✓ Completed Run Logged]
C4 --> E0
D4 --> E0
E0 --> G0([End])
F0 --> G0([End])

Use Google Drawings to make it collaborative and gather feedback efficiently.

2

Step 2 — Define Technical Requirements / Implementation

2.1 System Flow Validation with Sequence Diagram

A sequence diagram clarifies data flow, dependencies, and API / Tool calls.

For example, Create Report Stage:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Scheduler
    participant AIP_Agent
    participant Google_Sheet as Google Sheet (Config)
    participant Google_Drive as Google Drive
    participant Google_Docs as Google Docs
    participant Gmail
    participant Audit_Log

    Scheduler->>AIP_Agent: Trigger job (Stage = Create)
    AIP_Agent->>Google_Sheet: Load Runtime Config
    AIP_Agent->>Google_Drive: Create Folder Structure
    AIP_Agent->>Google_Docs: Copy Template → Generate Report
    AIP_Agent->>Gmail: Notify PIC to fill report
    Gmail->>PIC: “Please complete your report”
    AIP_Agent->>Audit_Log: Log creation success

2.2 Alternative Option

If sequence diagrams can’t be created in time, you also can use a Markdown file to clarify the data flow, dependencies and API / Tool calls.

3

Step 3 — Design the Agent Diagram

3.1 Define Agents and Tools

Use an Agent Architecture Diagram to map all agent components and their tools.

For example:

graph TD
    A[Report Agent] --> B[Create Weekly Report Tool]
    A --> D[Reminder Weekly Report Tool]
    A --> C[Share Weekly Report Tool]

3.2 Agent Creation Best Practices

✅ Do’s

• Map the end-to-end flow before building.

• Keep each agent focused on a single intent.

• Define tool contracts and example I/O before prompt tuning.

• Test tools and sub-agents before testing the coordinator.

🚫 Don’ts

• Don’t start without a mapped flow.

• Don’t combine multiple intents in one agent.

• Don’t tune prompts before tool definitions.

• Don’t test the coordinator first.

Use Google Drawings to make it collaborative and gather feedback efficiently.

Example Agent Diagram that use Google Drawings can refer to this.

Note: Always begin with a single agent using multiple tools. Introduce sub-agents only for complex tasks — but remember they add latency since each sub-agent runs its own reasoning cycle.

4

Step 4 — Define Test Case Scenarios (TDD Approach)

4.1 Purpose

Test cases act as guards to ensure agents fulfill business requirements and behave consistently.

4.2 Recommended Spreadsheet Format

Kindly refer to this spreadsheet as an example.

4.3 Assertion Checklist

• ✅ Expected Tools + Parameters verified

• ✅ Output validation matches expected result

• ✅ Cross-check the process (input → output) with flow chart diagram

• ✅ Cross-check tool usage with agent diagram

4.4 Collaboration Tip

Document test cases in a shared spreadsheet and update them whenever logic changes.

For agent integration testing, please refer to this cookbook.

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For agent development after following all the steps, you can refer to Multi-Agent System Patterns to start creating agent or practice first with the Hands-On Examplesto explore tools and multi-agent flows.

📚 Summary

Phase	Deliverable	Purpose
Step 1 – Business Req	Functional Requirements (SDD) and Flow Chart	Define the “what” and “why”
Step 2 – Technical Req	Sequence Diagram or Markdown File	Define the “how”
Step 3 – Agent Design	Agent Diagram	Define who does what
Step 4 – Testing	Test Case Spreadsheet	Validate expected behavior

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Following this 4-step framework ensures every agent is:

✅ Business-aligned 

✅ Technically consistent 

✅ Easily scalable 

✅ Fully testable