Every agent demo has the same quiet moment: it works, on the happy path, with a friendly audience. Production has no happy path.

A timeout may have already charged a card. A price may change while an approval waits. A model may be persuaded to act outside its intended authority. The orchestration layer may scale while the systems behind it collapse.

This session examines ten production design decisions engineers often underestimate when moving an AI agent beyond the demo. Where should model judgment end and software-enforced invariants begin? How should the system represent an unknown outcome? Which facts must be revalidated before an approved action resumes? How much authority should the agent receive?

Using real code patterns rather than a live demo, we will examine idempotency keys, durable action records, approval versioning, scoped permissions, concurrency limits, containment boundaries, and structured tracing. Each pattern is tied to a failure mode that appears after shipping.

Attendees will leave able to:

- Separate model judgment from software-enforced rules
- Implement safe retries and approval revalidation for irreversible actions
- Evaluate an agent’s authority envelope and containment boundaries
- Use a ten-check release-review card to assess production readiness

Built for engineers and engineering leads shipping—or preparing to ship—an agent past the demo stage.

Audience: Engineers and engineering leads shipping or preparing to ship AI agents. Format: 45–60-minute technical talk using real code patterns and a ten-check release-review card; no live demo. Vendor scope: Vendor-neutral.