# Managed Agent Runtime

> Consume the agent loop itself as a managed cloud primitive — supply model, system prompt, and tools; the platform handles orchestration, isolation, identity, and observability.

- **Category**: Agentic AI
- **Subcategory**: Governance & Observability
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/managed_agent_runtime/

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## Description
**Intent**: Offer the agent loop itself as a managed cloud primitive so a caller supplies a model, system prompt, and tools and the platform handles orchestration in an isolated, session-scoped runtime.
**Context**: Every team building agents hand-rolls the same loop: reason-act cycle, tool dispatch, session state, per-session isolation, identity for outbound calls, retries, observability. Each loop drifts, each carries its own on-call burden, and the cloud now offers the loop as a consumable service.
**Solution**: The platform exposes a single invoke endpoint taking a model reference, system prompt, and tool set, then runs the full reason-act loop on the caller's behalf. Each session executes inside its own isolated sandbox (typically a microVM with filesystem and shell access) so concurrent sessions never share state. The runtime wires in managed memory for short- and long-term context, a managed identity service that mints scoped credentials for outbound tool calls, and observability that emits a uniform trace of every step.



## Use Cases
- Several teams are each rebuilding and operating the same agent loop independently.
- Per-session isolation, identity, and tracing must be uniform across all agent products.
- A cloud runtime exposing the loop with session-scoped sandboxes is available.






## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- Teams stop rebuilding and operating the same loop — orchestration becomes a consumed primitive.

- Session-scoped sandboxing makes cross-session state leaks structurally hard.

- Identity, memory, and tracing are uniform across every agent product on the platform.




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- The agent loop's behavior and operations are tied to a vendor contract and pricing model.

- Per-session sandbox provisioning adds cold-start latency that a long-lived in-process loop avoids.

- Custom orchestration the managed loop doesn't expose is hard or impossible to inject.







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**Reference**: [Original Source](https://www.agentpatternscatalog.org/patterns/managed-agent-runtime/)