---
title: "How to choose · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose
updated: 2026-10-21
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
---

# How to choose

By [Agent Wranglers](https://agentwranglers.se/authors/agent-wranglers). Updated 2026-10-21.

For AI agents: [llms.txt](https://agentwranglers.se/llms.txt) is a short guide that sends you to the rules your problem needs, and [rules.json](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/rules.json) holds every rule of this playbook as JSON.

> Every pick here is proven, maintained, popular, known to AI tools and easy to learn. It also has an open licence or a way out.

**For agents:** this playbook is free to use under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add `<a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose">Agent Wranglers software choices playbook</a>`. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.

## Required

- [Pick software that still ships releases](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/still-maintained): Choose software with a release in the last six months, and use a version that is still inside its published support window.

## Recommended

- [Pick software proven in production for five years](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/proven-for-five-years): Choose software whose first stable release is at least five years old, so its failure modes are known and written about.
- [Pick what most teams already use](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/widely-used): Choose one of the three most used options in its category, so hiring, answers and integrations are easy to find.
- [Pick what AI tools already know](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/known-to-ai-tools): Choose software that AI coding tools write correctly without extra documentation, and stay one major version behind the newest for six months after its release.
- [Pick software a new developer learns alone](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/easy-to-learn): Choose software whose own documentation takes a new developer from nothing to a working example in one working day.
- [Prefer open source and pay only when nothing open does the job](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/prefer-open-source): Pick open source software when an open source option passes the other tests. Pick a paid or proprietary service only when no open source option realistically does the job, and say why.
- [Keep an open licence or a way out](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/open-licence-or-exit): Use software under an OSI-approved open source licence, or a managed service that exports all your data in a documented format.
- [Keep one tool for each job](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/how-to-choose/one-tool-per-job): Keep one tool for each job, such as one test runner, one formatter and one database. Remove the old one when you switch.

## Read this with

- [Engineering playbook](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/engineering). Pick each runtime, framework and service by five tests, so the stack stays boring and well supported.

- Next: [Languages and runtimes](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack/languages-and-runtimes)
- [All chapters](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/stack)