Designing with AI

Agent Middleware: Adding Control and Observability to AI Agents

Issue #53 | How to intercept agent operations for logging, safety, rate limiting, and compliance - the middleware pattern for production AI agents.

Dec 16 • Victor Dibia, PhD

9

1

The Agent Execution Loop: How to Build an AI Agent From Scratch

Issue #52 | How AI agents work under the hood - the execution loop that enables reasoning, tool calling, and iterative problem solving.

Dec 11 • Victor Dibia, PhD

16

4

Manning Cancelled My Book — Here's What Happened Next

Issue #51 | Sometimes the arrangement is the problem

Dec 8 • Victor Dibia, PhD

9

Top Books on AI Agents in 2025

Issue #50 | A list of books I'd recommend to folks interested in understanding and building AI and Agents

Dec 2 • Victor Dibia, PhD

16

1

November 2025

Two Years, 15 Chapters: The Multi-Agent Systems Book Is Finally Here!

Issue #49 | It took only 2 years-ish, but I finished writing the multi-agent systems book and it is now available!

Nov 14 • Victor Dibia, PhD

18

2

5

October 2025

/upgrade ... or ...

Issue #48 | somber reflections on how AI coding tools are changing developer behavior, cognition, and dependency (the slope we are all sliding down)

Oct 27 • Victor Dibia, PhD

12

1

2

Building with Agent Framework - Day 1: Block, Transform, and Control Agent Behavior with Middleware

#47 | Add reusable validation, security, and logging without touching your core agent logic

Oct 6 • Victor Dibia, PhD

6

4

Introducing Microsoft Agent Framework (Semantic Kernel + AutoGen)

#46 | If Semantic Kernel and AutoGen joined forces …

Oct 1 • Victor Dibia, PhD

11

3

August 2025

MCP For Software Engineers | Part 2: Interactive & Long-Running Tools (Progress streaming, User Input, Cancellation), Resources & Prompts

#45 | A deep dive into implementing Tools, Resources, Prompts, Roots in the MCP

Aug 1 • Victor Dibia, PhD

10

6

July 2025

MCP For Software Engineers | Part 1 : Building Your First Server

#44 | New to MCP? Heres how to build your first MCP server and a Host Application that integrates and uses the server.

Jul 2 • Victor Dibia, PhD

41

10

June 2025

... Why I write about AI ...

#43 | 6000 subscribers, and my reflections on why I write about AI .. and why you should too!

Jun 17 • Victor Dibia, PhD

12

1

3

4 UX Design Principles for Autonomous Multi-Agent AI Systems

#42 | A summary from a keynote talk I gave at the 2025 AI.Engineer World's Fair Conference.

Jun 6 • Victor Dibia, PhD

16

6