Welcome to Building Your First AI Agent! 🤖

You’re about to build a Personal To-Do Agent. It’s a small AI agent that manages your to-do list. You type natural language like “remind me about my dentist appointment on Tuesday” and the agent decides to call the addTodo tool.

This isn’t a deep theory article. It’s a guided, interactive tutorial where you learn by doing.

What You’ll Build

By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have:

• ✅ A working AI agent that understands natural language tasks
• ✅ Tools for managing a to-do list (add, list, complete)
• ✅ Memory that persists across multiple turns
• ✅ A simple web UI to interact with your agent
• ✅ Understanding of how agents differ from simple chatbots

What You’ll Learn

• What an AI agent is - In simple terms, without jargon
• The difference between a simple chat completion and an agent loop
• How to define tools and connect them to an LLM
• How to build an agent loop that calls tools and remembers state
• How to create a simple UI for your agent

Tutorial Structure

This tutorial is divided into 8 interactive pages (approximately 30 minutes):

1. Introduction (4 min) - What you’ll build and why agents matter
2. Concept: What Is an AI Agent? (4 min) - Mental model without jargon
3. Project Setup (3 min) - Get ready to run code
4. Designing the Agent (4 min) - Plan tools and memory
5. Implementing Tools (5 min) - Write the tool functions
6. Wiring the LLM with Function Calling (6 min) - Connect tools to the model
7. Building the Agent Loop (4 min) - Put it all together
8. Testing, Limits, and Summary (4 min) - Test your agent and next steps

Interactive Features

Throughout this tutorial, you’ll experience:

• 🎬 Animated Diagrams - Visualize the agent loop
• 🔄 Animated Flows - See data flow between components
• 💻 Live Code Runner - Try code examples directly
• ✅ Knowledge Checks - Test your understanding
• 📊 Interactive Concepts - Step-by-step visualizations

Prerequisites

Before starting, you should have:

• Node.js installed (v18 or later)
• Basic JavaScript or TypeScript knowledge
• An OpenAI API key (or similar LLM with function calling)
• A code editor (VS Code recommended)

Don’t worry if you’re not an expert - we’ll explain everything as we go!

Estimated Time

⏱️ 30 minutes to complete this tutorial

You can take breaks and resume anytime. Each section builds on the previous one.

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What Is an AI Agent?

Quick Preview: An AI agent is more than a one-shot LLM call. It’s a loop that receives messages, decides what to do next, calls tools when needed, and remembers state across turns. Unlike a simple chatbot, an agent can take actions, remember context, and maintain state.

Why it matters: Most AI applications are just single API calls. Agents add decision-making, tool use, and state management. They’re powerful but need careful design.

Ready to build one? Click the button above to start!