Serverless Agent Architecture Starter

A production-ready starter project demonstrating how to build full-stack applications with AI agents deployed to Vercel, orchestrated by Inngest, and powered by Next.js 15. This architecture pattern enables you to build scalable AI-powered applications with long-running workflows.

🔗 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/brookr/serverless-agents

⚠️ Important: After deploying, you must configure the Inngest integration in Vercel. See Deployment Instructions for details.

🏗️ Architecture Pattern

This starter demonstrates a modern serverless architecture for AI applications:

• AI Agents as Vercel Functions: Python FastAPI agents that deploy as serverless functions
• Next.js Frontend: Modern React application with App Router
• Inngest Orchestration: Reliable workflow management for long-running AI tasks
• Vercel Blob Storage: Persistent storage for generated content
• Two-Stage Processing: Separation of concerns with research and formatting agents

🎯 Why This Architecture?

This pattern solves common challenges in AI application development:

• Serverless Scalability: Agents scale automatically with demand
• Long-Running Jobs: Inngest handles workflows that exceed typical timeout limits
• Cost Efficiency: Pay only for actual usage, no idle servers
• Developer Experience: Local development mirrors production exactly
• Type Safety: Full TypeScript support across the stack

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• Python 3.9+
• OpenAI API key
• Vercel account (free tier works)

1. Clone and Install

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/brookr/serverless-agents.git
cd serverless-agents

# Install Node.js dependencies
npm install

# Install Python dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Environment Setup

Create a .env.local file:

# Required
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key_here
NEWSLETTER_READ_WRITE_TOKEN=your_vercel_blob_token

# Optional (Inngest will auto-generate if not provided)
INNGEST_SIGNING_KEY=your_inngest_signing_key

3. Run Development Servers

You'll need three terminals:

Terminal 1 - Python Agent Server:

uvicorn api.agents:app --reload --reload-dir api --port 8000

Terminal 2 - Next.js Development:

npm run dev

Terminal 3 - Inngest Dev Server:

npx inngest-cli@latest dev --no-discovery -u http://localhost:3000/api/inngest

4. Access the Application

• Main App: http://localhost:3000
• Python API: http://localhost:8000
• Inngest Dashboard: http://localhost:8288

📁 Project Structure

├── src/
│   ├── app/                      # Next.js app directory
│   │   ├── api/
│   │   │   ├── inngest/         # Inngest webhook endpoint
│   │   │   └── newsletter/      # API routes for the example app
│   │   └── newsletter/
│   │       └── [slug]/          # Dynamic pages
│   ├── components/              # React components
│   │   └── ui/                  # shadcn/ui components
│   ├── inngest/
│   │   ├── client.ts           # Inngest client configuration
│   │   └── functions.ts        # Workflow definitions
│   └── lib/
│       └── *.ts                # Utilities and helpers
├── api/
│   └── agents.py               # FastAPI agent definitions
├── public/                     # Static assets
├── vercel.json                # Vercel routing configuration
├── requirements.txt            # Python dependencies
└── package.json               # Node.js dependencies

🔧 Core Components

1. AI Agents (FastAPI + Vercel Functions)

The api/agents.py file demonstrates how to structure AI agents:

# Example agent structure
research_agent = Agent(
    name="Research Agent",
    model="gpt-4.1",
    instructions="...",
    tools=[WebSearchTool()]
)

@app.post("/research")
async def research_endpoint(request: TopicsRequest):
    # Agent logic here

# Example agent structure
formatting_agent = Agent(
    name="Formatting Agent", 
    model="o3", # Your OpenAI Org must be verified to use o3. Else use a different model.
    ...
)

2. Inngest Workflows

The src/inngest/functions.ts shows how to orchestrate long-running tasks:

export const generateNewsletter = inngest.createFunction(
  { id: "generate-newsletter" },
  { event: "newsletter/generate" },
  async ({ event, step }) => {
    // Multi-step workflow with retries and error handling
  }
);

3. Next.js Integration

API routes in src/app/api/ demonstrate the integration pattern:

• Webhook endpoint for Inngest
• Status checking endpoints
• Trigger endpoints for workflows

4. Vercel Configuration

The vercel.json file is critical for proper Python API routing. Build python after NextJS, and configure the routes to point to the python file:

{
  "builds": [
    { "src": "package.json", "use": "@vercel/next" },
    { "src": "api/agents.py", "use": "@vercel/python" }
  ],
  "routes": [
    { "src": "^/api/agents/(.*)", "dest": "/api/agents.py" },
    { "src": "^/api/agents$", "dest": "/api/agents.py" }
  ]
}

This configuration ensures that all /api/agents/* paths are routed to your Python FastAPI application.

🎨 Customizing for Your Use Case

This starter uses a newsletter generator as an example, but the architecture supports any AI-powered application:

Common Patterns

1. Document Processing

   • Replace newsletter generation with document analysis
   • Use multiple agents for extraction, summarization, etc.

2. Data Pipeline

   • Implement ETL workflows with AI enhancement
   • Chain multiple processing steps

3. Content Generation

   • Build blog post generators, report writers, etc.
   • Add review and approval workflows

4. Multi-Modal Applications

   • Integrate image generation APIs
   • Process audio/video with AI agents

Key Files to Modify

• api/agents.py - Define your AI agents and their capabilities
• src/inngest/functions.ts - Create your workflow logic
• src/app/api/ - Add your API endpoints
• src/app/ - Build your UI

🚢 Deployment

One-Click Deploy with Vercel

1. Click the Deploy Button

   • This will fork the repository to your GitHub account
   • You'll be prompted to enter the required environment variables:
     • OPENAI_API_KEY - Your OpenAI API key
     • NEWSLETTER_READ_WRITE_TOKEN - Generate this in Vercel Blob storage settings

2. Configure Inngest Integration ⚠️ Critical Step

   After deployment completes:

   • Go to your new project in the Vercel dashboard
   • Navigate to Settings → Integrations
   • Search for and install the Inngest integration
   • Follow the setup wizard to connect your Inngest account
   • This automatically adds INNGEST_EVENT_KEY and INNGEST_SIGNING_KEY

   Note: Without this step, the API routes will return 404 errors!

3. Redeploy Your Project

   • After installing Inngest, go to the Deployments tab
   • Click the three dots menu on the latest deployment
   • Select Redeploy
   • Wait for the deployment to complete

4. Verify Everything Works

   • Visit your deployed site
   • Try generating a newsletter
   • Check that all API endpoints respond:
     • /api/newsletter/[slug] - Newsletter generation
     • /api/agents/ping - Python API health check
     • /api/agents/research - AI research agent
     • /api/agents/format - AI formatting agent
     • /api/inngest - Inngest webhook

⚠️ Important: After pressing the Generate Newsletter button, if the progress spinner spins infinitely and you get an error message similar to, "Your organization must be verified to use the model o3-2025-04-16", then you may need to verify your organization on OpenAI. If you don't verify, you can switch your model from "o3" to something else like "gpt-4.1" to get this working.

Manual Deployment

If you prefer to deploy manually:

# Clone your fork
git clone https://github.com/YOUR_USERNAME/serverless-agents
cd serverless-agents

# Login to Vercel
vercel login

# Deploy (you'll be prompted for env vars)
vercel --prod

Then follow steps 2-4 above to configure Inngest.

Environment Variables Reference

Variable	Description	When Added
OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI API key for AI agents	During deployment
NEWSLETTER_READ_WRITE_TOKEN	Vercel Blob storage token	During deployment
INNGEST_EVENT_KEY	Event security key	Auto-added by Inngest
INNGEST_SIGNING_KEY	Webhook signing key	Auto-added by Inngest

Troubleshooting

• 404 on API routes: Make sure you've installed the Inngest integration and redeployed
• 500 on Python agents: Check that OPENAI_API_KEY is set correctly
• Newsletter not generating: Verify all environment variables are present in Vercel dashboard

🔍 Understanding the Architecture

Request Flow

1. User Interaction → Next.js frontend
2. API Route → Triggers Inngest workflow
3. Inngest Function → Orchestrates the process
4. Agent Calls → Vercel Functions execute AI tasks
5. Storage → Results saved to Vercel Blob
6. Response → User sees the result

Why Inngest?

• Reliability: Automatic retries and error handling
• Observability: Built-in monitoring and debugging
• Scalability: Handles thousands of concurrent workflows
• Developer Experience: Great local development tools

Why Vercel Functions for Agents?

• Zero Config: Python agents deploy automatically
• Auto-scaling: Handle any load without infrastructure management
• Cost Effective: Pay per execution, not for idle time
• Global Edge: Deploy close to your users

📄 License

This project is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal - see the LICENSE.md file.

📚 Learn More

Architecture Components

• Next.js Documentation
• Inngest Documentation
• Vercel Functions
• FastAPI Documentation

Related Patterns

• Serverless AI Patterns
• Long-Running Jobs with Inngest
• Python on Vercel

🎯 Next Steps

1. Explore the Code: Start with api/agents.py and src/inngest/functions.ts
2. Run Locally: Get the development environment running
3. Modify for Your Use Case: Replace the newsletter example with your own AI workflow
4. Deploy: Push to production on Vercel
5. Share: Let us know what you build!

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! See our Contributing Guidelines for details.

📦 Repository: https://github.com/brookr/serverless-agents

Contributors

Author: @brookr

Contributors:

• @chrisg220
• YOUR NAME HERE!

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Built as a reference architecture for modern AI applications. Use this as a starting point for your own serverless agent projects.