OpenAI: A Practical Guide to Building AI Agents
What it is
A strong operator-level guide to when agents are actually the right choice, how to structure workflows, tool use, handoffs, and guardrails. Better than generic “AI agents” hype pieces because it focuses on real deployment patterns and failure modes.
Why we picked it
Founders need this before they waste time bolting “agents” onto problems that only need simple automation. High signal, practical, and current.
How you might use it
Operations work is often invisible until something breaks. This fits the Run Smoother Operations workflow, which is about fixing the processes you run more than once a week. Pick one of those processes and test it there first.
Visit the resource
Go to openai.comOpens the official site in a new tab.
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The guided path
Want the guided path? The playbook shows you what to build first, step by step.
Seven workflows. The best tools from this library, arranged into a sequence that gets your first automation running in your first session.