keretrendszer

in English: framework

basicwidespread

A pre-written software base that provides the skeleton and rules of a program, so the developer only needs to add their own unique parts.

In plain terms

Imagine building a house, but not starting with brick-making: you get a ready structure with a foundation, load-bearing walls, and water and electricity lines. You still have to design and build the rooms, the equipment, and everything that makes the house yours. A framework is the same in the world of software: a ready skeleton on which the developer builds their own application.

It is useful so that you do not have to reinvent everything. Most programs need the same foundations: user login, saving data, displaying pages, handling errors. The framework provides these ready-made, in a form tested by thousands of other developers.

In return, the framework sets the rules of the game: where files go, in what order steps run, and how the whole is built. This makes work faster and more uniform, but reduces freedom.

In the AI world, you encounter many frameworks: some are used to train models, while others are used to build agents, connecting the language model with tools, memory, and task steps.

How it works

The developer selects a framework for the task (for example, for a website, mobile app, or agent building) and installs it on their machine.
Most frameworks create a ready-made project skeleton: folders, basic settings, and a working empty application.
The developer writes their own code into designated areas: what the user sees, what data the program handles, and what happens upon a button press.
While running, the framework takes control: it receives requests and invokes the developer's code at the appropriate moment. This is called inversion of control.
Framework creators regularly release new versions with bug fixes and security updates, which developers must follow.

An everyday example

When you add something to your cart in an online store, log in, and pay, you are almost certainly using a site built on a framework. The store's developers did not write the login or database management themselves; they only added their own products and branding on top of the ready-made foundation.

Who is affected

developerMost of daily work is defined by which framework one works in and how well one knows its rules. → Code

entrepreneur, executiveSelecting a framework influences for years how much development costs, which specialists you need to hire, and how difficult it is to switch later.

jobseeker, new graduateMany developer job postings require knowledge of specific frameworks, so it is worth knowing what each is used for. → Work & HR

everyoneThe websites, apps, and AI tools you use daily are almost all built on some framework, so their bugs and security vulnerabilities can affect you too.

A common misconception

MythA framework is a ready-made program that only needs to be activated.

In realityThe framework itself does nothing useful; it is just a skeleton and rule set. The developer must write the application on top of it, which remains serious professional work.

Limits and risks

Building on a framework creates dependency: switching later often requires rewriting most of the application.
If a security flaw is found in a framework, it can affect many applications built on it at once, so neglecting updates is a real risk.
Frameworks change rapidly, and a popular framework can become obsolete or lose support within a few years; this is especially true for agent frameworks.
The price of convenience is that the developer does not always understand what happens in the background, complicating debugging and performance improvement.

Similar, but not the same

software library – A library is a toolkit from which the developer's code calls individual functions, whereas in a framework the reverse applies: the framework controls and calls the developer's code.
platform – A platform is the environment where a finished program runs (for example, an operating system or cloud service), while a framework is the skeleton from which the program is built.
programming language – The language is what the code is written in, while the framework is a pre-written foundation in a specific language to build upon.

Related concepts

Broader

software development, szoftver, developer tools

Narrower

webes keretrendszer, agent-keretrendszer, machine learning framework

On the edge

software library, API, SDK, open source, platform

A brief history

Frameworks emerged in the 1980s alongside object-oriented programming. Web frameworks existed in the early 2000s, but Ruby on Rails (2004) and Django (2005) popularized their modern form. Frameworks for building agents appeared in late 2022 with the spread of large language models.

Where things stand

As of late 2026, frameworks underpin almost every area of software development; this is standard industry practice. The market for agent frameworks, however, is still changing rapidly, and coding agents increasingly write the framework-based code themselves.

Status: 2026 November

In the news

Appears in 79 Agent Age stories; the curve shows weekly occurrence in the news magazine.

Attackers use agentic tooling to find exposed secrets in public GitHub reposNov 6, 2026 · Code
OCC's first supervisory guidance on bank AI use rates simple payment agents as high riskNov 4, 2026 · Money
Parts of the EU AI Act to apply in Northern Ireland, but only to AI-integrated goodsNov 4, 2026 · Jog
FDA classifies digital cervical cytology slide imaging systems that use AI algorithmsNov 4, 2026 · Health
AMA outlines governance framework for agentic AI in clinical careNov 3, 2026 · Health
OpenAI responds to election backlash with data center policy package, drops NDAsNov 2, 2026 · Agent Age
Instagram's AI labelling rules in India affect brands and creators, Legal 500 saysNov 2, 2026 · Marketing
Universities set AI policies: Colorado, Nebraska, UIC and Harvard ExtensionNov 2, 2026 · Education & Family

Also known as

keretrendszer · framework · szoftverkeretrendszer · software framework · developer framework · webes keretrendszer · agent-keretrendszer · agent framework

Sources

This entry was machine-edited and has undergone machine expert review; the “In the news” section updates automatically from Agent Age stories.