Topic
How agent executions carry, transition and externalize the data that describes where a run currently is, including state held outside the LLM context window.
Part two of the AWS multi-agent series abstracts model providers with a code sample, then leaves session storage where each framework put it. That is where the switching cost actually sits.
Reality
An AI architect scrapped a working content agent because its output lived in a Telegram scroll. The rebuild uses three data planes, and the agent gets unattended write access to exactly one.
Reality
Three months of an agent's state lives in append-only JSONL files in a repo. The retry-safety comes from a function that refuses to overwrite a row, not from merge semantics.
Reality
A field guide on dev.to describes a logistics agent that cleared 94% of test cases and 11% of 4,000 real tickets a day. The model was fine. Nobody designed the system around it.
Reality
A dev.to explainer splits state, memory and checkpointing into three separate definitions. The split matters most at the point the excerpt stops: what happens when you resume.
Reality