--- title: "Field-tested patterns for agentic systems · Agentic Atlas" description: "Field-tested patterns for designing agentic systems. One atlas for you and your agents: browse the plates, or consult it over MCP." canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/" last-updated: "2026-09-01" --- # Agentic Atlas Field-tested patterns for designing agentic systems. One atlas for you and your agents. [Open the map](https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas) New here? [Take the first tour](https://agentic-atlas.dev/tour) — a guided walk through the surveyed ground. agentic-atlas 26 nodes charted [`/mcp/ · atlas_orient`](https://agentic-atlas.dev/connect) ## What this is A pattern corpus for designing skills and agent systems — context economy, cost relocation, dispatch, verification, and the other recurring design problems of agentic work. Each is written up as a Node: a named pattern or concept, the ruling that settled it, a worked example, and its position among the Nodes around it. The Atlas is built to be consulted rather than read cover to cover — arrive with a question, leave with the one plate that answers it. ## How to read the map One legend governs every plate, so it is worth learning once. On the chart a glyph says what kind of thing a point is, and a line says two of them were argued to be related. Four marks carry most of the map. pattern · concept A named pattern or concept, fully written and filed. example A pattern seen working in a real system. roadmap Ground scouted but not yet surveyed. connection An argued relationship — follow it in either direction. [Open the map →](https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas) ## Where things are [Atlas](https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas) The map itself: every published Node, drawn with the legend above. Arrive with a question, leave with the plate that answers it. [Tour](https://agentic-atlas.dev/tour) New here? A guided walk through one stretch of the map, a step at a time. [Argued](https://agentic-atlas.dev/decisions) The decision record. Every ruling a pattern states was settled somewhere, and this is where: the question, the options weighed, the verdict. Open it when you disagree with a plate and want the reasoning rather than the conclusion. [Glossary](https://agentic-atlas.dev/glossary) The working vocabulary, one term per entry, linked wherever a plate uses it. [Search](https://agentic-atlas.dev/search) Full-text over every plate, for when you already know a word of what you need. [Connect](https://agentic-atlas.dev/connect) The wiring, for readers who work with an agent: how to point the plugin or any MCP client at the layer below the line. [API](https://agentic-atlas.dev/api-reference) The read-only JSON API, operation by operation, with its parameters, bounds, refusals and worked calls. No key and no account. Open it if you are building against the Atlas rather than reading it. [Why](https://agentic-atlas.dev/why) The case for the whole thing: what the corpus is for, and the argument that a pattern corpus is worth publishing this way. ## One atlas, two readers The Atlas is bilingual by construction. A human arrives with a question and reads a plate; an agent mid-task fetches the same plate as JSON. Neither projection is the real one. Above the line · the page Agentic Atlas Prose, argument, and worked examples — a book you read. Below the line · the layer agentic-atlas MCP /mcp/ · atlas_orient · atlas_cards · atlas_read The layer is hosted here — nothing to install — and it puts the active Release behind a consultation ladder: `atlas_orient`, then `atlas_cards`, then `atlas_read`, so an agent mid-task loads only the context it needs. Both projections render from one Catalog revision, and the machine-facing paths appear here undisguised: they are evidence, not implementation detail. Wiring instructions for the plugin and any MCP client live at [/connect](https://agentic-atlas.dev/connect). ## From the catalog What is behind a glyph on the chart. Every Node carries a hook that says when to reach for it, the maturity it claims, and a machine Card an agent fetches instead of reading the page. concept ### [Foundations](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/foundations) the prerequisite substrate and residence test [Read the full Node →](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/foundations) `atlas_cards foundations` · "status": "stable"