Managed Agents
If building your own agent loop is more infrastructure than you want to own, a managed (Anthropic-hosted) agent option runs the loop for you — so you focus on the agent's job, not on session plumbing, retries, and state.
What "managed" buys you
Rather than hand-rolling and hosting the loop, you get hosted building blocks such as:
- Sessions — persistent agent runs you can resume.
- Environments — a place for the agent to operate with its tools.
- Memory — state that carries across turns/runs without you wiring a database.
- Scheduling — agents that run on a schedule, unattended.
(Exact names and the surface area evolve — treat the official docs as authoritative.)
When to choose managed vs custom
| Choose managed when… | Choose a custom loop / SDK when… |
|---|---|
| You want hosting, state, and scheduling handled | You need full control over the loop and tools |
| You're prototyping quickly | You have strict custom infra/compliance needs |
| Ops simplicity matters more than control | You're embedding deeply in your own stack |
It's a spectrum — single call → workflow → custom agent (SDK) → managed. Start as simple as the task allows; move up only when you need to.
Same guardrails apply
Hosted or not, an autonomous agent still takes actions. Keep least privilege, bounded cost/iterations, and human approval for risky steps — see Securing Agents and Hardening Autonomous Runs.