The lesson
Mrs Tan calls at 6
It is 6 in the morning, and the phone rings before the stock has finished brewing. Mrs Tan, from the block opposite, has a request. Her son’s birthday party is tonight: 10 plates of Hokkien Mee, to be picked up by 7. I write 1 line on the order board, and I walk away, back to my prawns. I can do that now. This stall has a chef who runs the whole service on its own: the checking, the ordering, the timing, the frying, and the fixing. That chef is software. The industry calls it an agent.
From answering to finishing
Everything you have met so far answered questions. The prawn sorter labelled. The Friday counter counted. The recipe writer invented. The chatbot explained. Every one of them waited politely for its next question. An agent is built the other way round. You give it a goal, not a question, and it works until the goal is met, whatever that takes. Its loop has 4 moves: plan the steps, use the tools, check your own progress, handle the surprises. The tools are ordinary: the phone, the ledger, the supplier list. So is the memory. It knows the regulars and their usual orders. It knows what the store room holds. Nobody tells it the next step. After every move, it asks itself what the goal still needs.
Agents already around you
Agents already work around you, mostly invisible. A bank system that once only answered questions can now block a stolen card and order the replacement before you finish your kopi. A travel assistant that once only searched fares can now hold the seat and book the hotel. It reschedules the connecting flight, and it puts the itinerary in your calendar. It is the same shape as my stall: goal in, steps chosen, tools used, job done.
The apron is yours
Now the apron is yours. The order says: 10 plates, to be picked up by 7 tonight. Walk the whole service in your head, step by step. Do not skip the messy parts. Where do you start? And what do you do when the squid runs out? I give you three seconds.
Pause here for three seconds.
Show the answer
… Here is the trace. Check the stock first. The noodles cover 10 plates, but the prawns are short. So phone the supplier and lock 2 extra kilos by 9 a.m. Write the cooking schedule backwards from 7, because fried noodles wait for nobody. Fry in batches. Plate in stacks. Label the 1 plate with no meat. Then comes the surprise: the squid bin is empty by 5. The agent swaps in prawns, notes the change on the ticket, and messages Mrs Tan before she thinks to ask. Every step on this list was chosen by the machine itself.