When I first tried building an Al agent, I spent three weeks reading documentation and watching YouTube tutorials. The result? Zero working agents. I was drowning in frameworks, paralyzed by choices, convinced I needed to master LangChain, AutoGen, and five other tools before writing a single line of code. Then I realized: I was doing it backwards. The best builders I know start simple, ship fast, and learn by doing. So I threw out my 47-tab browser session and started over. Within a weekend, I had my first working agent. Within a month, I had five. Here’s exactly how l’d do it if I was starting from scratch today . The Truth About AI Agents Before we dive in, let’s drop the hype. AI agents aren’t magical. They aren’t sentient. They won’t replace you. They are simply code that takes an input, sends it through an LLM and produces an output (sometimes triggering actions). Everything else is marketing designed to sell courses. The good news is that simplicity is your advantage. You can build something useful today. Step 1: Start With GPTs (Yes, Really) I know what you’re thinking. “GPTs? That’s not real agent building!” Wrong. OpenAI’s GPTs are your training wheels. They handle the infrastructure, updates, and reliability while you learn the fundamentals: how to structure prompts, manage context, and think about agent behavior. Start with something simple: A personal research assistant that summarizes articles
A code reviewer that catches obvious bugs
A meeting notes formatter A personal research assistant that summarizes articles A code reviewer that catches obvious bugs A meeting notes formatter Focus on prompt engineering. Learn how to: Structure clear instructions
Handle edge cases
Chain prompts together Structure clear instructions Handle edge cases Chain prompts together The goal isn’t to impress anyone. It’s to understand how AI agents think and respond. Mastering this is already 70% of what you need to know. Step 2: Automate Everything with n8n This is where things get interesting. n8n is an open-source automation tool you can host yourself. Think of it as Zapier on steroids, but you own the data. Your first n8n project is to build something that saves you 10 minutes a day. For me, it was a workflow that: Scraped my favorite AI newsletters
Filtered for topics I care about
Summarized key points
Posted to my personal Slack Scraped my favorite AI newsletters Filtered for topics I care about Summarized key points Posted to my personal Slack Time invested: 2 hours. Time saved: Countless hours of doom-scrolling. Here’s how to start: Install n8n locally (Docker makes this painless)


Build a workflow that connects two services you already use


Add error handling


Schedule it to run automatically Install n8n locally (Docker makes this painless) Install n8n locally (Docker makes this painless) Build a workflow that connects two services you already use Build a workflow that connects two services you already use Add error handling Add error handling Schedule it to run automatically Schedule it to run automatically Step 3: Level Up with Multi-Agent Systems (CrewAI) This is where most tutorials get complicated. Not this one. CrewAI is Python code that lets multiple agents work together. Think of it as a small team where each agent has a single task. Here’s a simple multi-agent setup: Agent 1: The Researcher: Finds relevant information
Agent 2: The Analyst: Processes and filters data
Agent 3: The Writer: Creates the final output Agent 1: The Researcher: Finds relevant information Agent 2: The Analyst: Processes and filters data Agent 3: The Writer: Creates the final output Keep it simple. Start with two agents. You can add more later, but you probably won’t need to. I learned this the hard way after my first “10-agent masterpiece” crashed during a demo. Step 4: 10x Your Speed with Cursor Full disclosure: I’m not a 10x developer, but Cursor makes me feel like one. It’s an IDE that codes with you, not for you. That distinction matters. Here’s how I use it: Write a comment describing what I want
Let Cursor suggest the implementation
Tweak and test
Move five times faster than coding alone Write a comment describing what I want Let Cursor suggest the implementation Tweak and test Move five times faster than coding alone For example, building a CrewAI agent to analyze GitHub repos took me four hours with Cursor. Without it, it would have taken two days and 47 open Stack Overflow tabs. Step 5: Ship It with Streamlit Your agent is useless if nobody can use it. Streamlit turns your Python scripts into web apps in minutes. No HTML. No CSS. No JavaScript headaches. My first Streamlit app looked like this: import streamlit as st

user_input = st.text_input("What do you need help with?")
if st.button("Get Answer"):
 # Your agent logic here
 st.write(response) import streamlit as st

user_input = st.text_input("What do you need help with?")
if st.button("Get Answer"):
 # Your agent logic here
 st.write(response) That’s it. 5 lines of code for a working interface. Step 6: The Mental Model That Changes Everything After building a dozen agents, I realized this: Every agent has just three parts: Input: What information comes in?
Process: What happens to that information?
Output: Where does the result go? Input: What information comes in? Process: What happens to that information? Output: Where does the result go? That’s all. From a basic chatbot to a complex research system, it’s always these three steps. Stop overcomplicating it. Step 7: Your First Real Project Theory won’t help if you don’t build. Here’s a project you can complete this weekend: The Daily Intelligence Agent Input: RSS feeds from your favorite sources Input Process: Process n8n scrapes the feeds
CrewAI agents filter and rank by relevance
GPT summarizes the top five n8n scrapes the feeds CrewAI agents filter and rank by relevance GPT summarizes the top five Output: Output Email digest
Slack notification
Streamlit dashboard Email digest Slack notification Streamlit dashboard Tools you’ll need: Tools you’ll need n8n for orchestration
GPT for summarization
CrewAI for handling multiple sources
Streamlit for the dashboard
Cursor to code faster n8n for orchestration GPT for summarization CrewAI for handling multiple sources Streamlit for the dashboard Cursor to code faster Time to build: One weekendValue delivered: Hours saved every week Time to build Value delivered The Uncomfortable Truth Most people reading this won’t build anything. They’ll bookmark it, share it, maybe start installing tools. But they won’t ship. Don’t be most people. Pick one thing from this guide. Build it today. Not tomorrow. Today. It will be messy. It might break. That’s fine. Here’s what nobody tells you: the gap between someone who’s built one agent and someone who’s built zero is huge. The gap between one agent and ten is just repetition. Next steps: Next steps Today: Install n8n and build your first workflow


This week: Create a simple GPT-powered tool


This month: Ship a multi-agent system that solves a real problem


This quarter: Build a portfolio of agents, making your life easier Today: Install n8n and build your first workflow Today: Install n8n and build your first workflow This week: Create a simple GPT-powered tool This week: Create a simple GPT-powered tool This month: Ship a multi-agent system that solves a real problem This month: Ship a multi-agent system that solves a real problem This quarter: Build a portfolio of agents, making your life easier This quarter: Build a portfolio of agents, making your life easier The tools are free. The knowledge is here. The only thing missing is you doing it. So start. So start. So start.

Walkthroughs, tutorials, guides, and tips. This story will teach you how to do something new or how to do something better.

This story contains AI-generated text. The author has used AI either for research, to generate outlines, or write the text itself. 

The Complete Beginner's Guide to Building AI Agents (The No-BS Version)

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

Untitled Story

Stop Waiting: Make XGBoost 46x Faster With One Parameter Change

Build a Monster-Finding Tool For Your Next D&D Session That Picks the Right Encounter For You

AI and the Prospect of a Post-Big Tech Internet

Beep Beep Bop Bop: How to Deploy Multiple AI Agents Using Local LLMs

How Will Software Engineers Lose Their Jobs Within the Next 5 Years?

Stop Waiting: Make XGBoost 46x Faster With One Parameter Change

Build a Monster-Finding Tool For Your Next D&D Session That Picks the Right Encounter For You

AI and the Prospect of a Post-Big Tech Internet

Beep Beep Bop Bop: How to Deploy Multiple AI Agents Using Local LLMs

How Will Software Engineers Lose Their Jobs Within the Next 5 Years?

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps