Russell Miles

Hands-On AI Agent Engineering - Habits for safe, explainable, domain-grounded AI

AI agents are moving from novelty to necessity — but building them safely, predictably, and observably requires more than clever prompts. This workshop gives developers a practical introduction to AI agent engineering using Embabel, with an emphasis on the habits, patterns, and mental models needed to design trustworthy agents in real systems.

Across two focused sessions, you’ll learn how to ground agents in strong domain models (DICE), design goal-driven behaviours (GOAP), enforce safety through invariants and preconditions, and make every action explainable through observability.

You’ll run and inspect a fully working reference agent, extend its domain, add new actions, and validate behaviour through explainable planning logs. You'll explore how to select and deploy models tuned to provide the best and most cost-effective agent behaviour for your users.

By the end of this full day workshop, you’ll know how to:
Build agents anchored in typed domain models
Design composable, goal-oriented behaviours
Use preconditions and invariants as safety guardrails
Debug agents through explainability, not guesswork
Extend an agent with new domain objects and actions without breaking existing flows
Apply a repeatable habit stack for reliable agent engineering

Whether you’re designing workflow agents, platform automations, or domain-specific assistants, this workshop gives you the practical skills and engineering discipline to build agents that behave safely and reason predictably — fit for production, and even fit for regulated environments.

Great AI Engineering Habits

The AI revolution isn’t coming — it’s already here, in our editors, our pipelines, our incident channels, our platforms. But while everyone is racing to bolt “AI-powered” onto their products, a quieter, more consequential truth is emerging:
The future won’t belong to teams with the biggest models. It will belong to teams with the best habits.

This keynote is a fast-paced journey into the craft of AI engineering — the behaviours, reflexes, and mental disciplines that separate teams who build safe, reliable, explainable AI systems from those who unleash unpredictable ones into production.

Through vivid stories of teams who got these habits right — and cautionary tales of those who didn’t — you’ll see why AI engineering is less about algorithms and more about discipline: the daily behaviours that make AI predictable, governable, and safe in the wild.

Mastering Platform Engineering: From Design to Value

Internal developer platforms hold promise: faster delivery, better reliability, happier engineers. Yet they often stall—caught in organisational inertia, tool complexity, and unclear value.

These two high-impact 90-minute sessions give you the core mental models and practical artefacts to shift from tool-chase to strategic platform value. You’ll walk away with real maps, a clear focus, and next-step experiments—not just ideas. If you’re looking to make your platform team a force for value, not just operations, this compact format delivers.

By the end of the workshop you'll know:
How to see your platform ecosystem clearly using tools like Wardley Mapping, User Needs Mapping, Value Stream Mapping and OODA loops.
How to treat the platform as a product, shifting mindset from internal project to self-service, developer-centric product.
How to apply the pattern language of platform design (Golden Path, Self-Service, Abstraction, Composability, Guardrails, Observability, Extensibility, Incremental Roll-out).
How to use DSRP + UNM + VSM to reveal where value stalls, flow breaks, and cognitive load spikes.
How to design smallest viable changes, build an impact roadmap, and influence adoption through “Elephant & Rider” thinking (rational vs emotional mindsets).
You'll also get a sneak peek into the future of platforms: AI/automation, evolving loops, and building resilience into your ecosystem.
If your platform team is stuck in the grind—shipping tickets, fighting fires, juggling tools, and wondering why nothing ever seems to change—this workshop will give you the clarity and leverage you’ve been missing. You’ll learn to read your organisation like a map: where value flows, where it dies, where cognitive load spikes, and where small, strategic platform moves can unlock disproportionate impact.

This isn’t another “tools tour”. Whether you’re building an IDP from scratch or rescuing one that’s drifting, you’ll leave with a clear roadmap, a set of tested patterns, and the influence skills to actually make the work land. Platform engineering is no longer about managing complexity—it’s about creating the conditions where developers can thrive. Join us, map your ecosystem, design the future, and turn your platform team into the strategic engine your organisation needs.

By the end of this half day workshop you'll know:

How to see your platform ecosystem clearly using tools like Wardley Mapping, User Needs Mapping, Value Stream Mapping and OODA loops.
How to treat the platform as a product, shifting mindset from internal project to self-service, developer-centric product.
How to apply the pattern language of platform design (Golden Path, Self-Service, Abstraction, Composability, Guardrails, Observability, Extensibility, Incremental Roll-out).
How to use DSRP + UNM + VSM to reveal where value stalls, flow breaks, and cognitive load spikes.
How to design smallest viable changes, build an impact roadmap, and influence adoption through “Elephant & Rider” thinking (rational vs emotional mindsets).
You'll also get a sneak peek into the future of platforms: AI/automation, evolving loops, and building resilience into your ecosystem.
If your platform team is stuck in the grind—shipping tickets, fighting fires, juggling tools, and wondering why nothing ever seems to change—this workshop will give you the clarity and leverage you’ve been missing. You’ll learn to read your organisation like a map: where value flows, where it dies, where cognitive load spikes, and where small, strategic platform moves can unlock disproportionate impact.

This isn’t another “tools tour”. Whether you’re building an IDP from scratch or rescuing one that’s drifting, you’ll leave with a clear roadmap, a set of tested patterns, and the influence skills to actually make the work land. Platform engineering is no longer about managing complexity—it’s about creating the conditions where developers can thrive. Join us, map your ecosystem, design the future, and turn your platform team into the strategic engine your organisation needs.

Mastering Platform Engineering: From Design to Value

Internal developer platforms hold promise: faster delivery, better reliability, happier engineers. Yet they often stall—caught in organisational inertia, tool complexity, and unclear value.

These two high-impact 90-minute sessions give you the core mental models and practical artefacts to shift from tool-chase to strategic platform value. You’ll walk away with real maps, a clear focus, and next-step experiments—not just ideas. If you’re looking to make your platform team a force for value, not just operations, this compact format delivers.

By the end of the workshop you'll know:
How to see your platform ecosystem clearly using tools like Wardley Mapping, User Needs Mapping, Value Stream Mapping and OODA loops.
How to treat the platform as a product, shifting mindset from internal project to self-service, developer-centric product.
How to apply the pattern language of platform design (Golden Path, Self-Service, Abstraction, Composability, Guardrails, Observability, Extensibility, Incremental Roll-out).
How to use DSRP + UNM + VSM to reveal where value stalls, flow breaks, and cognitive load spikes.
How to design smallest viable changes, build an impact roadmap, and influence adoption through “Elephant & Rider” thinking (rational vs emotional mindsets).
You'll also get a sneak peek into the future of platforms: AI/automation, evolving loops, and building resilience into your ecosystem.
If your platform team is stuck in the grind—shipping tickets, fighting fires, juggling tools, and wondering why nothing ever seems to change—this workshop will give you the clarity and leverage you’ve been missing. You’ll learn to read your organisation like a map: where value flows, where it dies, where cognitive load spikes, and where small, strategic platform moves can unlock disproportionate impact.

This isn’t another “tools tour”. Whether you’re building an IDP from scratch or rescuing one that’s drifting, you’ll leave with a clear roadmap, a set of tested patterns, and the influence skills to actually make the work land. Platform engineering is no longer about managing complexity—it’s about creating the conditions where developers can thrive. Join us, map your ecosystem, design the future, and turn your platform team into the strategic engine your organisation needs.

By the end of this half day workshop you'll know:

How to see your platform ecosystem clearly using tools like Wardley Mapping, User Needs Mapping, Value Stream Mapping and OODA loops.
How to treat the platform as a product, shifting mindset from internal project to self-service, developer-centric product.
How to apply the pattern language of platform design (Golden Path, Self-Service, Abstraction, Composability, Guardrails, Observability, Extensibility, Incremental Roll-out).
How to use DSRP + UNM + VSM to reveal where value stalls, flow breaks, and cognitive load spikes.
How to design smallest viable changes, build an impact roadmap, and influence adoption through “Elephant & Rider” thinking (rational vs emotional mindsets).
You'll also get a sneak peek into the future of platforms: AI/automation, evolving loops, and building resilience into your ecosystem.
If your platform team is stuck in the grind—shipping tickets, fighting fires, juggling tools, and wondering why nothing ever seems to change—this workshop will give you the clarity and leverage you’ve been missing. You’ll learn to read your organisation like a map: where value flows, where it dies, where cognitive load spikes, and where small, strategic platform moves can unlock disproportionate impact.

This isn’t another “tools tour”. Whether you’re building an IDP from scratch or rescuing one that’s drifting, you’ll leave with a clear roadmap, a set of tested patterns, and the influence skills to actually make the work land. Platform engineering is no longer about managing complexity—it’s about creating the conditions where developers can thrive. Join us, map your ecosystem, design the future, and turn your platform team into the strategic engine your organisation needs.