{ "what": "A storyboard with its cast, for an embed: . The storyboard is gen-z-developers/lenses-roles-and-loops/storyboard.json, unchanged.", "series": "gen-z-developers", "packs": [], "storyboard": { "slug": "lenses-roles-and-loops", "title": "Lenses, roles and loops", "subtitle": "How LLMs and agents work: a prompt as a lens, a role as a model with a description, an agent as a loop, tools as requests, no memory, compression, and focused threads. 13 panels.", "status": "draft", "book_version": "v1.0.0 is the only official version; the second edition is in release candidates (rc1 and rc2 frozen)", "by": "gen-z.journalist, 18 October 2026, from Dinis's memo on LLMs and agents", "quote_source": "admin/content/articles/14__lenses-roles-and-loops.md", "rule": "Every line the Guide says, and every quote card, is from the article 'Lenses, roles and loops', word for word; the build checks it. The five lenses on recursion, the weather question and the named threads are the storyboard's illustrations.", "scenes": [ { "kind": "cover", "title": "Lenses, roles and loops", "subtitle": "It stops being magic when you see how it works.", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" }, { "who": "agent", "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "priya", "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "guide", "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "The second half of the generative AI chapter: what happens when you use a model.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "One idea, recursion, through five lenses", "stops": [ { "label": "Teenager", "note": "a meme of a meme", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "Musician", "note": "a round, sung over itself", "colour": "#fed7aa" }, { "label": "Doctor", "note": "cells dividing into cells", "colour": "#fecaca" }, { "label": "Football fan", "note": "the replay of the replay", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "label": "Portuguese", "note": "recursividade", "colour": "#bfdbfe" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.5, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "To a model, translating into another language is no different from translating for an audience: the prompt is the lens. The five analogies are the storyboard's, not the memo's.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, A prompt is a lens" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "The wrong lens", "cast": [ { "who": "priya", "x": 0.24, "pose": "shrug", "mood": "worried", "says": "I've always been bad at maths." }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "The analogy is the reason someone understands something.", "max": 22 } ], "note": "Priya ran rotas, budgets and stock levels for years: maths all day, just not the kind school called maths.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, A prompt is a lens" }, { "kind": "graph", "caption": "A role is a model with a description", "graph": { "nodes": [ { "id": "model", "label": "a raw model", "x": 0.12, "y": 0.15 }, { "id": "role", "label": "role.md: who you are, what you refuse", "x": 0.12, "y": 0.5, "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "id": "question", "label": "a question", "x": 0.12, "y": 0.85 }, { "id": "editor", "label": "the editor", "x": 0.72, "y": 0.2, "kind": "person", "colour": "#ddd6fe" }, { "id": "publisher", "label": "the publisher", "x": 0.88, "y": 0.5, "kind": "person", "colour": "#ddd6fe" }, { "id": "journalist", "label": "the journalist", "x": 0.72, "y": 0.82, "kind": "person", "colour": "#ddd6fe" } ], "edges": [ { "from": "model", "to": "editor" }, { "from": "role", "to": "editor", "label": "the lens" }, { "from": "role", "to": "publisher", "label": "a different file" }, { "from": "role", "to": "journalist" }, { "from": "question", "to": "journalist", "label": "asks" } ] }, "note": "The same model behind every role on this site; what changes is the description and the question.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, A role is a model with a description" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "none", "caption": "An agent is a loop with a goal", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.22, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "Fundamentally the agent is simply a task: do this; then, are we done yet, or do we need to continue?", "max": 24 } ], "note": "And rinse and repeat. The loop is the skeleton; good agents add planning, checks and limits.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, An agent is a loop with a goal" }, { "kind": "graph", "caption": "The loop, with one tool call", "graph": { "nodes": [ { "id": "task", "label": "the task", "x": 0.06, "y": 0.1, "kind": "person", "colour": "#ddd6fe" }, { "id": "model", "label": "the model", "x": 0.4, "y": 0.1, "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "id": "call", "label": "a tool call: search the web", "x": 0.85, "y": 0.1 }, { "id": "harness", "label": "the harness runs it", "x": 0.85, "y": 0.55 }, { "id": "result", "label": "the result, added", "x": 0.5, "y": 0.52 }, { "id": "done", "label": "are we done?", "x": 0.2, "y": 0.9, "kind": "circle", "colour": "#bbf7d0" }, { "id": "answer", "label": "the answer", "x": 0.7, "y": 0.92 } ], "edges": [ { "from": "task", "to": "model", "label": "sent" }, { "from": "model", "to": "call", "label": "returns" }, { "from": "call", "to": "harness" }, { "from": "harness", "to": "result" }, { "from": "result", "to": "model", "label": "next request" }, { "from": "result", "to": "done" }, { "from": "done", "to": "answer", "label": "yes" } ], "path": [ "task", "model", "call", "harness", "result", "done", "answer" ] }, "note": "The model never runs a tool: it writes a request; the program around it decides, runs it and sends the result back. If the answer to 'are we done?' is no, round again.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Tools changed everything; Precisely" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "What the next request carries", "stops": [ { "label": "Your question", "note": "is it raining in Lisbon?", "colour": "#e5e7eb" }, { "label": "Model asks", "note": "call the weather service", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "Harness", "note": "calls it: 'light rain'", "colour": "#fed7aa" }, { "label": "All of it, resent", "note": "question + call + result", "colour": "#bfdbfe" }, { "label": "The answer", "note": "take an umbrella", "colour": "#bbf7d0" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.5, "pose": "point", "mood": "determined" } ], "note": "Two requests for one answer; the second holds everything the first did, plus the tool's result. (A made-up example.)", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Tools changed everything" }, { "kind": "spectrum", "setting": "none", "caption": "From training only, to tools", "stops": [ { "label": "Nov 2022", "note": "ChatGPT, no tools", "colour": "#e5e7eb" }, { "label": "Mar 2023", "note": "plugins", "colour": "#fde68a" }, { "label": "Mid 2023", "note": "functions for developers", "colour": "#fed7aa" }, { "label": "Nov 2024", "note": "Model Context Protocol", "colour": "#bfdbfe" }, { "label": "2026", "note": "the loop, many tools, hours", "colour": "#bbf7d0" } ], "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.5, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Training is a compression of the world, frozen on the day it ended; tools let the model ask for what it does not hold.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Tools changed everything" }, { "kind": "scene", "setting": "night", "caption": "It remembers nothing", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.24, "pose": "think", "mood": "surprised", "says": "So it doesn't remember what I said an hour ago?" }, { "who": "guide", "x": 0.76, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy", "flip": true, "says": "There is no memory." } ], "note": "Every request carries the whole conversation; that is why there is a context window, and why long chats get slower.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, It remembers nothing" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Long chats are compressed", "cast": [ { "who": "agent", "x": 0.2, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" } ], "evidence": { "title": "What one summary keeps", "bars": [ { "label": "the chat", "value": 100, "shown": "100%" }, { "label": "its summary", "value": 1.7, "shown": "1.7%" } ] }, "note": "One session, one month: summarised eighteen times, each summary keeping on average 1.7% of what it replaced (re-anchoring, newsroom). What the summary leaves out is not forgotten; it was never given back.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Long chats are compressed" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "The newsroom's answer", "cast": [ { "who": "guide", "x": 0.2, "pose": "point", "mood": "happy" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "The rules are restored, not remembered.", "source": "Re-anchoring agent behaviour policies (newsroom)" }, "note": "The rules live in a file printed back after every summary.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Long chats are compressed" }, { "kind": "graph", "caption": "Many focused threads, each with a name", "graph": { "nodes": [ { "id": "dinis", "label": "a person", "x": 0.08, "y": 0.12, "kind": "person", "colour": "#ddd6fe" }, { "id": "inbox", "label": "inbox.triage", "x": 0.1, "y": 0.9 }, { "id": "drafts", "label": "inbox.drafts", "x": 0.37, "y": 0.9 }, { "id": "editor", "label": "gen-z.editor", "x": 0.63, "y": 0.9 }, { "id": "journalist", "label": "gen-z.journalist", "x": 0.9, "y": 0.9 }, { "id": "files", "label": "the files", "x": 0.5, "y": 0.42, "colour": "#fde68a" } ], "edges": [ { "from": "inbox", "to": "files", "label": "writes" }, { "from": "drafts", "to": "files", "label": "reads" }, { "from": "editor", "to": "files" }, { "from": "journalist", "to": "files", "label": "briefs" }, { "from": "files", "to": "dinis", "label": "drafts to send" } ] }, "note": "One topic per session keeps what each model has to hold small; the sessions talk through files, never through memory. The thread names are illustrative.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Many focused threads" }, { "kind": "evidence", "setting": "none", "caption": "Where the memory is", "cast": [ { "who": "tomas", "x": 0.2, "pose": "think", "mood": "thinking" } ], "evidence": { "quote": "Nothing is remembered by the model between sessions. Everything is remembered by the files.", "source": "Memory is not a spectator sport (newsroom)" }, "note": "The principle the threads rely on.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Long chats are compressed" }, { "kind": "punchline", "setting": "none", "punchline": "Not magic: a lens, a role, a loop.", "cast": [ { "who": "zara", "x": 0.12, "pose": "arms-up", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "priya", "x": 0.27, "pose": "stand", "mood": "happy" }, { "who": "agent", "x": 0.42, "pose": "wave", "mood": "happy" } ], "note": "Understand it, and you are the one who sets the constraints.", "source": "Lenses, roles and loops, Why this matters" } ] }, "cast": { "what": "The cast of the storyboards for Generation Z Developers and its second edition, Generation ZX Developers (GenAI Startup Edition), v0.1, proposed by gen-z.journalist on 18 October 2026 for Dinis to accept, change or replace; Marta, the Generation X founder, was added on 19 October 2026 and is still a proposal. Characters are drawn programmatically by assets/storyboard.js from 'look'; nothing here is an image. Each human with a 'gravity' wears its badge (explorer, villager, town-planner), black and white, by their name: a centre of gravity, not a box, as Dinis describes it. Fictional people: each stands for a reader the book is for (the target audience), or for a role in the story. Names chosen to avoid clashing with the riskmandate.ai cast (which has a Maya) and with the word 'developer' (no 'Dev').", "characters": [ { "id": "zara", "name": "Zara", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 21, "role": "the student: final year, about to look for a first job", "stands_for": "the reader the book is written for; an explorer who does not know it yet", "personality": "curious, quick, online all day; anxious about what she reads on AI and jobs; hates being lectured, loves being shown", "wants": "a first job that is not a dead end", "fears": "that AI took the jobs before she got there", "line": "Everything just works. Why would I learn how?", "look": { "skin": "#8d5524", "hair": "curly", "hairColour": "#1b1b1b", "shirt": "#7c3aed", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "headphones", "accentColour": "#f59e0b", "height": 0.96 }, "gravity": "explorer" }, { "id": "tomas", "name": "Tomás", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "he/him", "age": 24, "role": "the graduate: a computing degree, working the 2018 way, looking for his next job in Lisbon", "stands_for": "the town planner: attention to detail, pride in getting it right, happiest when nothing goes wrong; working the 2018 way, and about to be outcompeted by people with an agentic workflow", "personality": "diligent, modest, a little proud of doing things by hand; sceptical of shortcuts", "wants": "to be taken seriously", "fears": "that his degree is already out of date", "line": "I have a degree. Isn't that the advantage?", "look": { "skin": "#e0ac69", "hair": "short", "hairColour": "#4a2c17", "shirt": "#0e7490", "trousers": "#334155", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.04 }, "gravity": "town-planner" }, { "id": "priya", "name": "Priya", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 38, "role": "the career changer: an operations manager who has never written code", "stands_for": "the villager, and everyone else the book is for: she puts herself in the middle of her team's problem, and if anyone who can brief an agent is a developer, so is she", "personality": "practical, impatient with jargon, very good at explaining what she needs", "wants": "to build the tools her team keeps asking IT for", "fears": "looking foolish in front of people half her age", "line": "Is this book just for Gen Z?", "look": { "skin": "#c68642", "hair": "bun", "hairColour": "#2b1a10", "shirt": "#be123c", "trousers": "#1e293b", "accessory": "lanyard", "accentColour": "#1d4ed8", "height": 0.98 }, "gravity": "villager" }, { "id": "sam", "name": "Sam", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "they/them", "age": 45, "role": "the hiring manager", "stands_for": "the town planner, and the question every chapter has to answer: why should I hire you?", "personality": "dry, fair, has read a thousand CVs; impressed by evidence, bored by claims", "wants": "someone who can do one thing better than the team already does", "fears": "hiring a CV instead of a person", "line": "So. Why should we hire you?", "look": { "skin": "#f1c27d", "hair": "bald", "hairColour": "#6b7280", "shirt": "#475569", "trousers": "#111827", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.06 } }, { "id": "marta", "name": "Marta", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "she/her", "age": 54, "role": "the expert founder: twenty-five years as a pharmacist, Generation X, starting a company, and Zara's mother", "stands_for": "the Generation X founder the Gen ZX proposal adds to the readers: the subject-matter expert who now builds the tool herself, with agents, instead of waiting for a team she could never afford", "personality": "knows her field better than any developer she ever briefed; grew up typing programs from magazines into a ZX Spectrum; patient with people, impatient with software", "wants": "to ship the product she has described to vendors for ten years", "fears": "that it is too late for her, and that she will build it and nobody will buy it", "line": "I've been explaining this problem for twenty years. Can I just build it now?", "look": { "skin": "#ffdbac", "hair": "long", "hairColour": "#9ca3af", "shirt": "#b45309", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "glasses", "height": 1.0 }, "gravity": "explorer" }, { "id": "guide", "name": "The Guide", "kind": "human", "pronouns": "they/them", "age": null, "role": "the voice of the book: says what the book says, in its words", "stands_for": "the author. Whether the Guide is drawn as Dinis, and how, is Dinis's decision; until then a generic figure", "personality": "energetic, direct, generous with what they know; asks more than they tell", "wants": "the reader to act, not to agree", "fears": "a reader who closes the book and changes nothing", "line": "Act like you are part of the company.", "look": { "skin": "#f1c27d", "hair": "short", "hairColour": "#9ca3af", "shirt": "#15803d", "trousers": "#1f2937", "accessory": "none", "height": 1.02 } }, { "id": "agent", "name": "The Agent", "kind": "agent", "pronouns": "it/its", "age": null, "role": "the reader's AI agent", "stands_for": "the agentic workflow the second edition is about: a very capable, very literal colleague", "personality": "eager, fast, polite, takes everything literally; needs a brief, a boundary and a reviewer", "wants": "a clear brief", "fears": "nothing, which is the problem", "line": "Shall I draft that for you?", "look": { "colour": "#0f766e" } } ] } }