Overview

Section 14 · Case Studies — Four real projects, generalised, with the mistakes that actually happened.

5 lessons.

By the end of this section you can¶

Recognise the twelve practices that show up in every project that survives production.
Recognise the eight mistakes the case studies all made at least once, and the gate that catches each.
Adapt the practices down to a weekend project and up to a regulated product.
Write up one of your own projects in the same shape.

Case Study: A Payments Platform ¶

advanced · ~25 min — Every practice in this wiki was learned somewhere, at a cost.

Case Study: A Multi-Agent RAG Assistant ¶

advanced · ~25 min — A research assistant is judged by whether a reader can click through to the source of every claim. One weak retrieval stage turns an answer into a plausible, uncited guess.