https://heidloff.net/Blog from Niklas Heidloff, an IT professional focussing on artificial intelligence, development and advocacy. Niklas works at IBM and shares his AI, Cloud, OpenSource and DevOps experience. 2026-08-12T11:54:51+02:00 Niklas Heidloff https://heidloff.net/ Jekyll © 2026 Niklas Heidloff /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2026-08-12T01:01:00+02:00 2026-08-12T01:01:00+02:00 https://heidloff.net/article/bob-hooks-orchestrate/ Niklas Heidloff

The agentic software development tool IBM Bob has recently introduced support for hooks. Hooks enable developers to integrate deterministic code and validation gates into workflows, significantly increasing tool reliability while reducing AI guesswork and hallucinations. This post demonstrates how to utilize hooks in Bob when building watsonx Orchestrate agents. Generative AI and autonomous ag...

2026-08-10T01:01:00+02:00 2026-08-11T15:47:00+02:00 https://heidloff.net/article/watsonx-orchestrate-rbac/ Niklas Heidloff

When deploying agents to enterprise AI platforms like IBM watsonx Orchestrate, robust user authentication and authorization are foundational requirements. Agents must operate securely on behalf of users, ensuring they can only access authorized external systems and tools. This article outlines how to implement Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for your agents and tools. Supported by IBM Bob, I ...

2026-08-09T01:01:00+02:00 2026-08-09T01:01:00+02:00 https://heidloff.net/article/watsonx-orchestrate-authentication/ Niklas Heidloff

When deploying agents to AI enterprise platforms like IBM watsonx Orchestrate, user authentication is a primary requirement. Agents must be capable of operating on behalf of users to securely access external systems. This post outlines how to authenticate from Orchestrate agents with IBMid using IBM App ID. Supported by IBM Bob, I have developed an open-source example application to demonstrat...

2026-07-29T01:01:00+02:00 2026-07-29T01:01:00+02:00 https://heidloff.net/article/skills-watsonx-orchestrate/ Niklas Heidloff

In agentic software development frameworks like IBM Bob, skills provide essential functionality to instruct agents on how to handle domain-specific tasks. With its latest release, watsonx Orchestrate now also fully supports skills, enabling enterprise agents to operate on behalf of users seamlessly and sharing instructions between agents. In addition to textual instructions, agents can be equi...

2026-07-15T01:01:00+02:00 2026-07-15T01:01:00+02:00 https://heidloff.net/article/workflows-sub-agents-ibm-bob/ Niklas Heidloff

One of the key challenges in agentic software development is keeping AI-driven tasks reliable, predictable, and efficient. The latest version of IBM Bob addresses these pain points by introducing workflows that seamlessly blend deterministic scripting with AI reasoning. Additionally, Bob v2 now supports sub-agents, allowing developers to run tasks in parallel using isolated context windows. Th...