Why should you care?

Ad-hoc analyze-this-quarter questions need dynamic plans; fixed pipelines fail when users change intent.

See it live — copy this example

Paste into an ASP.NET Core 8+ / AgentNest project, then run with dotnet run (set your API keys in user-secrets).

// AgentNest.Agents/Planning/ErpPlannerAgent.cs
public sealed class ErpPlannerAgent(Kernel kernel)
{
    public async Task<string> RunAsync(string goal, CancellationToken ct)
    {
        var planner = new FunctionCallingStepwisePlanner();
        var plan = planner.CreatePlan(kernel, goal);
        var result = await plan.InvokeAsync(kernel, cancellationToken: ct);
        return result.GetValue<string>() ?? "";
    }
}

What happened?

• FunctionCallingStepwisePlanner asks the model which GlPlugin tools to call next until the goal is satisfied.
• Follow the steps below — typing the code yourself is the fastest way to learn.

Practice next

1. Register GlPlugin and AnalyticsPlugin on the kernel.
2. Wrap planner calls with MaxIterations guard.
3. Log each planned step to AgentNest audit.
4. Require user confirmation after plan preview JSON.
5. Swap planner model to cheaper deployment for planning only.

Remember

Planners dynamically sequence kernel functions. Use for flexible ERP and analytics questions. Cap iterations and audit every planned step.

CFO ad-hoc analysis

Finance lead asks natural-language questions during board prep.

Outcome: ErpPlannerAgent chains balance and variance tools without a fixed diagram.