Streaming and Real-Time UX

Agents are slow by the standards of web requests; a single turn can take many seconds, involving several model calls and tool executions. If the user stares at a spinner the whole time, the agent feels broken even when it's working perfectly. Streaming is the answer, and it's not a cosmetic add-on: it's an architectural choice that shapes your orchestrator, your transport, and your data model. This chapter explains how to design a streaming agent.