Prepare Agent Architecture & SDLC

Map the canonical agent loop onto the SDLC and recognise the high-leverage steps where AI agents amplify a team — without replacing the engineers who own the outcomes.

Catalog the failure modes that show up again and again in agent systems — chat-as-architecture, infinite loops, prompt-stuffing, hidden side-effects — and learn the specific controls GH-600 expects you to apply to each.

Before you write a single prompt, you need a typed contract: what comes in, what goes out, and how you decide the run was a success. This topic gives you the framework GH-600 expects you to apply.

The plan/execution boundary is the single most exam-relevant control in agent architecture. Learn where to place it, what validations belong on each side, and how to recognise scenarios where the boundary is missing.

A 'plan' that is just a paragraph of text is not a plan — it is a hope. Learn the schema GH-600 expects for a structured plan, the validations you can apply to it, and the failure modes a structured plan unlocks.

Autonomy is a dial, not a switch. Learn the GH-600 autonomy ladder, the guardrails required at each rung, and how to pick the right level for a given blast radius and reversibility.

An inspectable artifact is what turns an agent run from a black box into a reviewable change. Learn which artifacts the exam expects, how they compose, and the pitfalls that make them useless in practice.