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ReAct, Toolformer, Reflexion, Voyager, and the framework paper almost nobody opens. You already ship all five, you just never read where they came from. #
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from langgraph.prebuilt import create_react_agent
You have probably written this line or something very close to it. You called it, gave it a couple of tools, and shipped the agent. And you have almost certainly never opened ReAct, the 2022 paper that function is named after.
It runs deeper than one import. The tool-calling loop, the retry after a step fails, the folder of skills your agent reaches into, and the graph of nodes holding its state all trace back to five papers. You didn’t pick these ideas up one at a time over years. You inherited a single stretch of research wearing API names and you run it every day without the manual.
This is that manual: what each paper actually proved, which line of your code it turned into, and the part of each one that never made it into what you ship.
Line them up in the order they were published and they stop looking like five papers and start looking like one system being assembled. ReAct, co-authored…