A successful demonstration answers one question: can this idea work? A production system must answer several more. Can it operate with real business data? Can it handle failures? Can people understand and review its outputs?
Begin with the workflow rather than the model. Define the inputs, the decision the system supports, and where human review is needed. Agree how quality will be evaluated before choosing an implementation.
Treat access controls, monitoring, data handling and cost limits as architecture decisions, not finishing touches. Start with a bounded use case, evaluate its behavior, and expand only when the evidence supports it.
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