What I Learned Building Multi-Agent Systems From Scratch

"Once GPT-3.5 came out, we just made a contract with OpenAI and then we had access to their model, and we had some internal chat tools. Fast forward to 2024, then we had it available to everyone. We had contracts with all the major providers. We had LibreChat, which is an open-source chat interface that you can set up agents, and talk to them, and you'll set the system prompt, and all this stuff that you're used to."

"We had VSCode with Copilot. We had Cursor, which was probably 1 year old at that point. Then there was still a significant portion of the engineers that were not using AI day-to-day, and that's a lot because folks are busy, they can't try, or they tried it once with GPT-3.5, and they had a bad experience, so skepticism and all those things came into play."

"What I really like about Shopify is that we truly have a hacker culture. That comes from our CEO Tobi. Curiosity is very encouraged and rewarded, and they give us all the tools for us to play. The way that Tobi describes it is that he likes Shopify to be a crafter's paradise. That's a really nice thing about it."

"My journey starts with test generation. I heard from a few talks about testing and AI. A"

After GPT-3.5 became available, Shopify contracted with OpenAI and provided internal chat tools. By 2024, AI access expanded to everyone, with contracts across major providers and multiple interfaces and assistants. LibreChat enabled agent setup with system prompts. VSCode with Copilot and Cursor supported developer workflows. Even with these options, a significant portion of engineers still did not use AI daily due to time constraints, one-off experimentation, and negative early experiences that created skepticism. Shopify’s hacker culture encouraged curiosity and experimentation, supported by tools that let engineers “play.” This environment shaped a personal journey focused on building systems that let computers and agents communicate, starting with test generation.

Read at InfoQ