Deterministic Core, Agentic Shell

State machines are the answer for those seeking determinism in the era of AI agents. The release of Gary Bernhardt’s screencast Functional Core, Imperative Shell mentioned at the end of his talk Boundaries was a transformational moment for me. Up until that point in my career, I hadn’t really thought too much about “architecture” as it relates to software, well at least not in the way I had heard…