---
title: "The first tour · Agentic Atlas"
description: "A guided walk across the surveyed ground, in the order the survey recommends reading it. Eight nodes, then the map is yours."
canonical: "https://agentic-atlas.dev/tour"
last-updated: "2026-09-23"
---

A guided route

# The first tour

A guided walk across the surveyed ground, in the order the survey recommends reading it. Eight nodes, then the map is yours.

concept

## [Step 1: Foundations](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/foundations?from=tour)

the ideas every other pattern assumes, and the test for what belongs here

concept

## [Step 2: The Context Economy](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/context-economy?from=tour)

what each piece of context costs, in quality, dollars, and latency, and who pays

example

## [Step 3: The Session Bill](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/session-bill?from=tour)

one agent session's token bill, recomputed six times with one decision changed each time

pattern

## [Step 4: Cost Relocation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/cost-relocation?from=tour)

context that costs by its size on every turn but is only needed sometimes

example

## [Step 5: One Guide, Three Bills](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/one-guide-three-bills?from=tour)

one guide loaded later or handed to a helper: one agent's cost versus the system's

pattern

## [Step 6: Subagent Offload](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/subagent-offload?from=tour)

handing work to a subagent so its material never fills the orchestrator's context

example

## [Step 7: Parallel Audit Investigation](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/parallel-audit-investigation?from=tour)

a full investigation's working set stays in another agent's window; only its verdict returns

concept

## [Step 8: Verification Asymmetry](https://agentic-atlas.dev/nodes/verification-asymmetry?from=tour)

why checking an answer can be easier than producing it, and when that fails

Surveyed ground · 8 nodes charted

edges from the current catalog revision

1. The guide, on step 1: Every pattern in the Atlas stands on the same ground. An agent is a context window being spent, and this Node states the claim everything else argues from.
2. The guide, on step 2: Before you can lower a cost you have to price it. This Node is the price model for context itself, and every tradeoff in the Atlas is quoted in its terms.
3. The guide, on step 3: The price model applied. One thirty-turn session is billed, then re-billed under six single design decisions, so you can watch each law move a real total. Keep this bill in hand for the rest of the walk.
4. The guide, on step 4: The first mechanism. A cost you cannot delete can still be paid later or paid by someone else, and most designs in the Atlas are making one of those two moves.
5. The guide, on step 5: The mechanism at work. One ten-thousand-token guide is billed three ways. Moving the payment point protects the early turns, and moving the payer protects the orchestrator, even when the system as a whole spends more.
6. The guide, on step 6: The pay-elsewhere branch on its own. When work would flood a window that has to stay clear, hand the work a window of its own and take back only the result.
7. The guide, on step 7: The offload at work. A full investigation runs in a child agent while the orchestrator keeps drafting, and only the verdict comes back. Everything the investigation touched stays out of the window that mattered.
8. The guide, on step 8: The closing lens. Checking a result is cheaper than producing it, and every design on this walk leans on that gap. Take it back to the map with you.

**Legend**  pattern · concept  example  roadmap  connection  tour route

[Open the map](https://agentic-atlas.dev/atlas)