Dev agent build checklist

1. Confirm legal and security approvals, including data residency and retention requirements.
2. Document prioritized workflows with expected outcomes and human approval points.
3. Select model provider/runtime; configure cost guardrails, latency budgets, and fallback models.
4. Set up secret management for repo access, CI credentials, and external APIs; rotate keys automatically.
5. Implement prompt/tooling repository with version control, code review, and automated testing.
6. Build audit logging pipeline (requests, outputs, decisions, cost) and dashboard visibility for stakeholders.
7. Pilot with a small cohort; provide onboarding docs, support channel, and weekly check-ins.
8. Sample agent outputs weekly for quality review; capture issues and feed into prompt/tool updates.
9. Measure workflow impact against baseline metrics and publish findings before scaling.
10. Define ongoing support ownership, escalation paths, and cadence for roadmap planning.

Prerequisites

• Observability stack capable of tracking agent latency, error rate, and cost metrics.
• Engineering bandwidth to iterate quickly on prompts and integrations.

Pitfalls

• Allowing write access to protected branches without explicit approval or safeguards.
• Treating cost management as an afterthought; token spikes can occur suddenly.
• Neglecting user support, leading to shadow tooling adoption.

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