I wrote a practical, no-framework walkthrough of building a first AI agent (just the loop, no LangChain/CrewAI)

Reddit r/AI_Agents Tools

Summary

A no-framework walkthrough for building a simple AI agent by hand, focusing on the core loop of goal, tool call, observe, and decide, with practical tips on prompt design, tool exposure, step limits, and logging.

Most "build your first agent" tutorials start with a framework and four new vocabulary words before you've written anything that does something. I wrote this one to skip that — it's just the goal → tool call → observe → decide loop, built by hand, no framework. Covers: why the prompt should describe the outcome not the steps, why to expose exactly two tools at first, why a hard step limit matters more than picking the "best" model, and why logging every step is the only way you'll actually understand what the agent did. Curious if others here are doing agent work without a framework, or if you've found the frameworks pay for themselves quickly.
Original Article

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