“How many piano tuners are in Chicago? Bounded uncertainty: precise enough to act on, uncertain enough to be honest.”
Enrico Fermi · University of Chicago Seminar
ALOFTALOFTFermi was famous for answering questions no one thought answerable — how many piano tuners in Chicago? — with nothing but logic and back-of-envelope estimation.
The Fermi agent does the same thing with operational data: sparse signals, incomplete records, partial logs. It doesn't wait for clean data. It estimates with principled uncertainty, flags what it can't know, and gives you a number you can act on.
Every Fermi answer comes with bounds. You see the estimate, the confidence, and the assumptions — not because we bolted it on, but because order-of-magnitude reasoning is the contract.
“How many piano tuners are in Chicago?”
— ENRICO FERMI · SEMINAR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
“How many piano tuners are in Chicago? Bounded uncertainty: precise enough to act on, uncertain enough to be honest.”
Enrico Fermi · University of Chicago SeminarEvery class ships with reference agents calibrated to operational use cases. Fork them, deploy them, or use them as a template.
Every agent in this class passes the same five-stage gate. Below: the criteria specific to Fermi agents at each stage.