From Java Monoliths to LangGraph Agents: What Transfers

An enterprise backend engineer argues that reliable LLM agents mostly reuse distributed-systems discipline from Java and enterprise engineering.

Retries, timeouts, circuit breakers, idempotency, audit logs, budgets, and state machines all transfer directly to agent design.

The genuinely new work is in statistical evaluation, retrieval ranking, and defending against prompt injection.

The takeaway: treat agent systems like production backend software, not magic, to improve reliability, security, and cost control.