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The Ultimate Roadmap to Building Your Own SI Agent
A practical roadmap for building a narrow agent: scope, tools, permissions, tests, and logs. It does not produce a superintelligent system.
Disclosure. Further reading links to a sister publication under the same ownership. Those pages are commentary, not evidence for a score or a ranking on this site.
The short answer
Build a narrow agent with one job, a short tool list, least privilege, a test set, and a log. That roadmap makes a supervisor possible. It does not build superintelligence. Nothing in the roadmap has been certified by us.
How to read this list
This is an editorial map, not a tested ranking and not a score. BestSuperintelligent has not independently tested the products, discoveries, or headlines named here. Nothing below is a winner. Use it to decide what to verify, then check a primary source.
An agent is a model plus tools plus permission. The roadmap is the order in which you constrain those three.
What order should I build in?
- Write the one jobIf the job needs two success tests, split it.
- List the toolsEach tool is a capability you must be willing to explain later.
- Cut the credentialsRead-only first. Add a write only for a named action.
- Write the testsInclude a case that should refuse. Run them yourself.
- Log the traceInputs, tool calls, and outputs, with a retention limit you chose.
- Name the personSomeone can stop the agent without asking the agent.
Read what is an agentic workflow before you add a second tool. The coding agent guide covers repository access.
Evidence in this article Editorial interpretation Our reading of what the evidence means. Judgment, clearly separated from the evidence itself.
Frequently asked questions
Can I build superintelligence by following these steps?
No. The steps build a bounded tool-using workflow. The name SI does not change that.
What should I refuse to automate first?
Actions you cannot undo, or actions with no log, such as sending mail or spending money without a person.
Is this a certified build guide?
No. It is an editorial sequence. You still have to run your own tests and read the vendor terms.
Sources
- How to read an evaluation BestSuperintelligent. Our own standard for what a result must show.
- Methodology BestSuperintelligent. Proposed weights and the rule that missing evidence is not a score.
Further reading
From a related publication under the same ownership. It is commentary, not evidence for anything on this site.
- Ten agent platforms for business, TheBestSI (sister site). Sister-site platform list. Not a test result.