12-factor Agents: Patterns of reliable LLM applications

I've been building AI agents for a while. After trying every framework out there and talking to many founders building with AI, I've noticed something interesting: most "AI Agents" that make it to production aren't actually that agentic. The best ones are mostly just well-engineered software with LLMs sprinkled in at key points. So I set out to document what I've learned about building production-grade AI systems: https://github.com/humanlayer/12-factor-agents . It's a set of principles for building LLM-powered software that's reliable enough to put in the hands of production customers. In the spirit of Heroku's 12 Factor Apps ( https://12factor.net/ ), these principles focus on the engineering practices that make LLM applications more reliable, scalable, and maintainable. Even as models get exponentially more powerful, these core techniques will remain valuable. I've seen many SaaS builders try to piv