---
title: "Agentic Atlas"
description: "A relationship map of the public catalog: every charted pattern, concept, and worked example, and how each Node sits against the ones around it."
canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas"
last-updated: "2026-08-19"
---

# Patterns in the Agentic Atlas

Field-tested patterns for designing agentic systems — the curated public slice of a private working corpus. A relationship map of the current public catalog.

1. [
   concept
   Foundations
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/foundations)
   the prerequisite substrate and residence test
2. [
   concept
   Baseline Skill
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/baseline-skill)
   the skill-packaging *Hello World* and reference shape for skill-facing nodes
3. [
   example
   Tell Me a Joke
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/tell-me-a-joke)
   a real runnable skill (the artifact *is* the example)
4. [
   concept
   The Contract
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/contract-documentation)
   expectations at a seam, from informal prose to enforced structure
5. [
   example
   The Shared Shape
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/shared-shape)
   both sides of a seam import one shared request-and-return shape
6. [
   concept
   The Contract Keystone
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/the-contract-keystone)
   contract ↔ verification ↔ re-dispatch
7. [
   example
   No Duck Left Behind
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/no-duck-left-behind)
   a deterministic duck census rejects one manifest and turns its errors into a bounded redispatch
8. [
   concept
   LLM Dispatch
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/llm-dispatch)
   the parent-child execution primitive; serial, parallel, joined, or fire-and-forget
9. [
   concept
   Statelessness
   ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/statelessness)
   each turn is conditioned on retained history again; logical reinjection yields a cost face and an explicit-state recovery face
10. [
    concept
    Effect Discipline
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/effect-discipline)
    the precondition under "discard is cheaper than repairing"
11. [
    example
    The Unsent Thunderstorm
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/unsent-thunderstorm)
    one rejected weather bulletin shows when to discard, retry, undo, or stop before acting
12. [
    concept
    Verification Asymmetry
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/verification-asymmetry)
    why checking ≪ doing lets verification work at all; the ladder + coverage, and the three failure modes (coverage exhaustion / discrimination collapse / quantifier inversion)
13. [
    concept
    The Context Economy
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy)
    **statics** — the price list: denominations, the quality curve, cost classes, time value
14. [
    example
    The Session Bill
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/session-bill)
    one 30-turn session billed, then re-billed under six single-decision shifts
15. [
    concept
    Context Flow
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-flow)
    **dynamics** — admission, residency, and eviction; placement and recall within residency
16. [
    concept
    Momentum
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/momentum)
    resident context steers, not just informs — path dependence, and eviction's second motive
17. [
    example
    Same Shards, Fresh Window
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/same-shards-fresh-window)
    Laban's sharded conversations drop 39%; the same shards in one fresh prompt hold 95.1% — a control that never got lost, not a recovery rate
18. [
    pattern
    Cost Relocation
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/cost-relocation)
    change when or whose window pays; may compose with selection or distillation
19. [
    example
    One Guide, Three Bills
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/one-guide-three-bills)
    one 10,000-token guide moves later or elsewhere, exposing the difference between an actor's bill and the system's
20. [
    pattern
    Deferred Context
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/deferred-context)
    the *load-in-place* branch: defer by probability *and lateness* of need — a 50-token pointer buys ~60× on the session that never fires
21. [
    pattern
    Reference Data
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/reference-data)
    the *authored-heavy* specialization: disk-resident, grep-addressable — pay for the size of the answer
22. [
    example
    The Runbook Shelf
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/runbook-shelf)
    an 800-document shelf cannot enter a 200k-token window; one incident-code query admits one answer-sized runbook
23. [
    pattern
    Subagent Offload
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/subagent-offload)
    the *dispatch-elsewhere* branch
24. [
    example
    Parallel Audit Investigation
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/parallel-audit-investigation)
    a full agent investigates in parallel; its working set stays elsewhere and only the verdict returns
25. [
    pattern
    Heavy Agent
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/heavy-agent)
    the *authored-heavy* specialization
26. [
    example
    The Docs Expert
    ](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/docs-expert-agent)
    a large reference baked into the agent; narrow questions in, distilled answers out — the orchestrator never loads the docs

Surveyed ground · 26 nodes charted edges from the current catalog revision

**Legend** ** pattern · concept ** example ** roadmap ** field note ** parent / child ** connection

[Not sure where to begin? Search for the situation you are in.](https://agentic-atlas.dev/search)

Every node drawn on the chart is fully written — the map only shows finished ground.