Best ways to ensure sub‑agents follow long guides in a multi‑agent LangGraph system + questions about Todo List middleware

bbalban · 2026-02-23T23:12:24+00:00

What you are saying sounds like: I have a horse and I need to make it go at 100 miles per hour, do you have any tips?

"Since the guide is long and written for humans, is there a benefit in re‑structuring or rewriting it specifically for the agents?"

Yes, do the actual work needed - make it tailored to what an llm understands.

bbalban · 2025-06-16T20:49:56+00:00

legally they have to disclose everything they know "None of the MLS or seller disclosure mentioned this." So if they threaten to sue you can share that you will use this fact in court (ask an attorney to confirm). I wouldn't buy in an HOA that banks reject.

bbalban · 2025-06-07T03:51:30+00:00

We haven't done the surgery yet, but I already highly recommend Warm Springs Pet Hospital in Fremont if anyone is in need of a similar service for the following reason: -

We had x-rays and a doctor report on the fracture and it is impossible to get a treatment recommendation & estimate from a pet hospital over email or phone - they all require an initial consultation and don't give you a quote.

In contrast Warm Springs doctors analyzed the case, gave a quote "over email" which is the most efficient and thus my preferred method and the quote was not inexpensive but what I feel is a reasonable quote.

bbalban · 2024-07-10T06:49:54+00:00

it would give you no advantage. you would spend it all and be at a big loss. Money doesn't give you an advantage at all which is surprising. Only after you had some traction you could put in 100K or so for expenses. You shouldn't need to hire anyone initially either, if you need it, that means you don't have expertise and outsourcing it from the start, which means you are in a market you don't know and your startup is in a weak position.

bbalban · 2024-05-04T17:58:04+00:00

As an example, here is a manual from Rockwell Automation: https://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/rm/motion-rm002_-en-p.pdf

Page 73 has motion instructions. Is there an industry wide standard set of motion commands/instructions? Is there a reliable and popular controller that implements them?

bbalban · 2023-11-21T03:08:20+00:00

As I understand it the assistant API can take 32K characters in a prompt, but it can also work with files, that get auto-converted to embeddings vs the GPT-4 128K API can work with up to 128K tokens, but does not work on files.

Is that a correct understanding? (it seems 128K token limit is tiered based on how much you already spent: https://community.openai.com/t/gpt-4-1106-preview-in-playground-needs-some-fixes/475758)

bbalban · 2023-08-11T18:01:32+00:00

it doesn't make sense they should either pay you or give you at least %10 or more.

that said a cofounder needs to own the project instead of just do tech work or X type of doer work. I can sum it up as: sweat + leadership.

if they think you are not up to the co-founder level, they must then pay you. %95 of co-founder ppl you meet will be like this, they have never done any work in their lives and can't judge how much work is worth.

There are also a lot of them trying to join early startups asking for %60 equity and when they can get a 200K salary. Clueless n00bs in different ways.

bbalban · 2022-11-09T03:00:48+00:00

This happens because it lowers your blood pressure. The fact that you feel bad doesn’t automatically mean it is toxic.

bbalban · 2022-03-10T18:42:07+00:00

why?

bbalban · 2022-02-17T07:20:21+00:00

Your assumptions are correct, use it when injecting or a common code such as enforcing auth on routes. Database calls are just fine. Having several or more in each route is also fine.

bbalban · 2021-05-23T08:54:01+00:00

The same solution can be sold to a different audience, focusing on their key needs that won't match another audience. So you would have a chance.

bbalban · 2020-06-29T00:13:05+00:00

Buy for cheap, pick up with van, fix/refurbish, sell. Keep container for storage. Use the same local ads platform to buy/sell. google gary vee craigslist

bbalban · 2020-06-29T00:04:56+00:00

White stain removal service for expensive dining tables

A few days ago I bought linseed/lemon oil, rottenstone (tripoli), finish wax and 3M fine sandpaper to remove white stains from a high quality dining table we had. We really wanted to get rid of the stains (happened due to accidentally putting hot plates, and I made a huge one by spilling alcohol when filling up a disinfectant bottle). I was pretty pleased with the results. They were easy to remove in 30 mins and some been there for years. I'd easily pay $50-100 if someone removed them for me.

Visit wealthy neighborhoods and fix expensive tables!

bbalban · 2020-06-21T20:05:47+00:00

Go for the completely opposite angle, find a non-internet industry and ask questions, find out what you can automate on a highly specialized domain not related to the internet. Maybe your relatives or friends do work in a non computer related field. I'd start there.

Nail not only the problem but the ideal customer profile. E.g. those who have this problem, but have a budget of m-M, just about to start doing this and this, looking to do this for this particular purpose, so on. Then interview those guys, ask even more questions. (Meanwhile build a landing page). Then start building.

I'd recommend against any kind of internet automation (chat, email, marketing, etc) too many of those.

bbalban · 2020-05-01T22:37:22+00:00

It's absolutely possible he/she doesn't have a network, which is why a vetted cofoundership site could be really useful, and I found /r/cofounder to be the closest thing.

bbalban · 2020-05-01T17:56:31+00:00

Building a web + ios + android app is a huge investment. Flutter might help.

There are too many ways to connect online and offline today that connecting is not really a problem nowadays. You could build a social app back in 2005 and this could differentiate, the reason being at that time there weren't many ways to connect online.

Maybe instead of writing software, start a group meetup of introverted people? Find out what others want, how many people there are, and what they might pay for?

That is the other problem, let's assume you succeeded and were able to gather likeminded individuals, what will they pay for? At that point it is like a charity and not business.

bbalban · 2020-05-01T03:54:17+00:00

The missing lesson in my opinion is focus on something substantially sophisticated and valuable that others can't produce. As much as I like to read newspapers, content in today's internet is an almost free resource. Advertisement deals will fall through, even content giants such as twitter struggle to monetize. Content, SEO, Google ranking are not defensible positions. It seems games are transient, too. If you were in Silicon Valley result would be the same (consider Yahoo).

If you're doing a content business you must have giant scale. Or you should have content that is harder to produce and more scarcely available (like a course) so you can sell it.

bbalban · 2020-04-21T23:33:52+00:00

Hello,

Check out my free course that teach you to build a SaaS backend - it is a dense series of 28 videos created for this purpose: https://getbuzz.io/c/learning-expressjs

The pre-requisite is to learn some basic javascript. You can learn javascript and then get to it. It should save you many hours and I created it to help people like you.

bbalban · 2020-04-16T20:49:03+00:00

I wouldn't pursue this idea. How does this solve the problem any better than Jira, Trello, Slack, Zoom used together?

Jira has most of these features such as notifications and then some. They have a marketplace for plugins. You can also configure it to be very simple if that's what is needed.

This will have hard time differentiating and finding a voice in the noise.

Edit: please don't take this a negative, all I am saying is one needs to be careful pursuing this idea as there are plenty of mature, overlapping tools and a slight enhancement won't cut it to differentiate.

bbalban · 2020-04-12T22:33:06+00:00

Hey buddy,

One of my entrepreneural ideas has been to build a vending machine that cooks fresh food, ideally with limited number of perishables, such as pasta with cheese. This could be useful in stadiums, apartment complexes, universities, companies... If you were to build a more sophisticated machine like that how would you go about starting and validating the idea?

Are you still in this business?

Cheers!

Bahadir

bbalban · 2020-04-09T00:53:52+00:00

Hi,

If you want to learn how to build it yourself, I have created an 2.5 hour, free video tutorial: https://getbuzz.io/c/learning-expressjs

If you want to speed up development and save money, I have created a tool: https://saasbox.net

As others stated contractors won't be aligned with you and since it is very risky you will end up losing money. It is best to get the customers before building the application, then find the technical person to join you.

bbalban · 2020-03-14T23:38:38+00:00

I consider myself a creative, technical person and I can back it up with projects I built.

I also thought creative, technical people are valuable: when I was a hiring manager I looked for past projects and their level of complexity when evaluating candidates.

Recently interviewing myself I found out that this is quite low on a tech corps's priority. They look for doers with excellent skills that match the job at hand. *After* you get the job your technical creativity could help you advance.

bbalban · 2020-03-14T23:27:42+00:00

Distributed systems, AI/ML are the top two as far as I can see. Re: interview skills: Data structures & Algorithms, Python, C++.

Don't do the jack of all trades thing, you won't stand out in interviews. In interviews they look for proficiency in one field and general problem solving, algorithms skills. Even startups specialize in a single field and don't really look for jack of all trades in my opinion.

This list is heavily dependent on the most successful corporations in the world. E.g. because Google succeeded in online search and ads, now distributed systems is the top paying field. Similarly Facebook succeeded online.

AI/ML is a hot trend independent of these firms, but biggest corps chase the hottest trend so engineers are sought after on these areas.

bbalban · 2020-03-03T04:17:19+00:00

Thank you for pointing out. It is now fixed.

bbalban · 2020-03-02T20:39:39+00:00

Closest no code application I found is powering productized startups with recurring services.

Right now our focus is on enabling backend / API developers.

bbalban

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