The Problem
Building agentic applications is a nightmare when you have to deal with all the routing, orchestration, and data management. You end up spending way too much time on boilerplate code instead of actually building features that matter. Every new agent means more code to manage, and your app starts looking like a tangled mess of spaghetti.
What This Does
Plano is here to pull the plumbing out of your codebase. It offloads the heavy lifting of routing and orchestration into its own data plane. Check out the apps/www/src/app/api/contact/route.ts for an example of how you can define your API routes without getting bogged down in the backend logic.
Using Filter Chains, you can easily implement moderation and memory hooks without writing a ton of boilerplate. You can find the configuration details in config/planoconfigschema.yaml, which makes it straightforward to customize your setup. Want to add a new agent? Just drop it in and let Plano handle the rest.
Real-World Use
Imagine you're building a travel agent app that interacts with multiple APIs for booking flights, hotels, and car rentals. With Plano, you can set up your agents to handle each task without hardcoding the logic into your app. You’d use apps/www/src/components/research/ResearchGrid.tsx to display results, while the routing and orchestration happen behind the scenes. Just define your agents in the cli/planoai/templates directory and let Plano manage the communication.
The Bottom Line
Plano is a solid choice if you’re tired of boilerplate and want to focus on building your agentic apps. It’s great for medium to large projects that need robust routing and orchestration but might be overkill for simple applications. If you're dealing with multiple agents and need a flexible, scalable solution, give Plano a shot. Just be ready to dive into the weeds of its configuration.