An L-MM for LLM Agents

I've been building agentic apps for some large Fortune 500 companies (T-Mobile, Twilio, etc.) and developed a mental model that serves as a practical guide in building agentic apps: separate the high-level agent specific logic from low-level platform capabilities. I call it the L-MM: the Logical Mental Model for LLM applications. This mental model has not only been tremendously helpful in building agents but also helping customers think about the development process - so when I am done with a consulting engagement they can move faster across the stack and enable engineers and platform teams to work concurrently without interference, boosting productivity. So what is the high-level logic vs. the low-level platform work? High-Level Logic (Agent & Task Specific) ⚒️ Tools and Environment These are specific integrations and capabilities that allow agents to interact with external systems or APIs to perform real-world tasks. Examples include: Booking a table via OpenTable API Scheduling calendar events via Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Retrieving and updating data from CRM platforms like Salesforce Utilizing payment gateways to complete transactions

Apr 22, 2025 - 19:14

I've been building agentic apps for some large Fortune 500 companies (T-Mobile, Twilio, etc.) and developed a mental model that serves as a practical guide in building agentic apps: separate the high-level agent specific logic from low-level platform capabilities. I call it the L-MM: the Logical Mental Model for LLM applications.

This mental model has not only been tremendously helpful in building agents but also helping customers think about the development process - so when I am done with a consulting engagement they can move faster across the stack and enable engineers and platform teams to work concurrently without interference, boosting productivity.

So what is the high-level logic vs. the low-level platform work?

High-Level Logic (Agent & Task Specific)

⚒️ Tools and Environment

These are specific integrations and capabilities that allow agents to interact with external systems or APIs to perform real-world tasks. Examples include:

Booking a table via OpenTable API
Scheduling calendar events via Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook
Retrieving and updating data from CRM platforms like Salesforce
Utilizing payment gateways to complete transactions