Document No.
RM–2026–01
Series
RESEARCH MEMORANDUM
Issued
APRIL 2026
Volume
I

THE FOCUS.AI · MAGAZINES Research
Memoranda on
Agent Engineering

A publication line distilling signal from the noise of an industry rearranging itself in real time. Six verticals. 3 of 6 issues available.

Reportage

STATE — conference reports and synthesis pieces, written in the editor's voice. Named speakers, situated arguments.

Reference

SURFACE · RUNTIME · HARNESS · LOCAL · WIRE — architecture explainers. Declarative, system-focused, heavily cited. Meant to be returned to.

§ Current Issues
06 / 06
  1. 01
    STATE · № 01
    APR 2026

    The Miami Report

    Two days at AI Engineer Miami · the forces moved, the patterns haven't refrozen

    "The forces have moved. Three populations are learning agency at once."

    Reports on the state of AI engineering.

  2. 02
    HARNESS · № 01
    IN PROGRESS

    The Builder's Field Manual

    Three generations of AI SDK, and the one worth shipping into

    "When the runtime is a coding agent, your program is a directory of skills."

    On the builder's practice of working with agent-native SDKs.

  3. 03
    LOCAL · № 01
    IN PROGRESS

    Inference or Die

    A tract on running it yourself

    "No centralization. No data exfiltration. Cheap. The Linux moment for AI looks like this."

    On inference sovereignty — hosted, self-hosted, on-device.

  4. 04
    WIRE · № 01
    IN PROGRESS

    The Three-Legged Stool

    MCP, skills, code mode — how agents access capability

    "Not versus. Plus. The three mechanisms sit on different legs of the same stool."

    On how agents access capability.

  5. 05
    RUNTIME · № 01
    MAR 2026

    The Code Mode Issue

    A quarterly about machines that think — and the substrates that hold them

    "The agent has always been writing."

    On machines that think, and the substrates that hold them.

  6. 06
    SURFACE · № 01
    MAR 2026

    After the Chat Log

    Six proposals for what agents should be permitted to display

    "The chat log is a box, and the box is running out of room."

    On presentation layers, UI protocols, and rendering.

On Voice

We use two registers. Reportage is the editor's voice — first-person, named, situated. Architecture is the house voice — declarative, third-person, heavily cited, meant to be returned to. Each issue declares which it uses.

On Structure

Six verticals, each ongoing. New issues drop without fanfare. Cross-references connect the reference issues into a single atlas; STATE synthesizes across the atlas.

On Chat

Every issue, section, source, and concept lives as markdown in a single repository. An MCP chat interface reads the same files we do. Connect your own client; or use ours.