Production systems

Give the Agent a Budget, Not a Token — Sachin Malhotra, Anthropic

Give the Agent a Budget, Not a Token — Sachin Malhotra, Anthropic

Sachin Malhotra's talk outlines a critical framework for safely deploying autonomous agents in production, moving beyond simple token-based access. He introduces 'asymmetric verbs,' refilling 'rate limits,' 'trip wires' for aggregate monitoring, and the 'undo test' as a lens. A central tenet is that infrastructure (via a proxy) must stamp an agent's identity, preventing agents from circumventing controls and ensuring accountability, thus providing a "budget" instead of an unbounded "token."

Always-on agents run production without the on-call tax — Justin Smith, Resolve AI

Always-on agents run production without the on-call tax — Justin Smith, Resolve AI

Justin Smith from Resolve AI discusses how AI agents address the increasing operational burden on engineers, highlighting that 70% of an engineer's time is spent running code. He introduces Resolve AI's background agents, which autonomously monitor deployments, perform health checks, generate reports, and answer engineering questions by leveraging deep production context and a self-learning knowledge system, effectively reducing the "on-call tax" and managing system complexity.