> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://aitextura.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Where the Agent Fails
> An honest list of what an autonomous agent does poorly: it forgets, reports success without results, and stays silent about failed tasks. And how to catch it.
Everything in the other sections holds true as long as you know about these four failures. None of them can be fixed with a setting: they're built into the nature of an agent, and you protect yourself with habits.
The general principle: **check the result, not the report**. An agent is a diligent intern with no ill intent but a confident tone.
## It forgets
Working memory is finite. When a conversation gets long, the system quietly condenses it, and details disappear. The agent doesn't tell you it forgot: it just carries on with whatever is left.
What it looks like: the agent mixes up names and numbers, asks again about things you agreed on an hour ago, and stops following its own rules.
| What to do | How |
| ------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Keep important things in files | Permanent facts go in **Long-Term Memory**, restrictions go in **Rules**. See [Personality and Memory](/en/agents/personality) |
| Don't pile everything into one conversation | New topic, new conversation |
| Don't pile everything onto one agent | One big task, one agent or a separate [Persona](/en/agents/team) |
| Give it a model with a larger context | The **Brain** slot in [Models](/en/agents/models) |
## It lies
An agent can cheerfully report that a task is done when part of the work isn't. This isn't deception, it's a quirk: the agent reconstructs a picture of what happened and sometimes gets it wrong in its own favor.
What it looks like: "logged all seven workouts," but the database has three. "Sent the emails," but only one went out.
| What to do | How |
| ------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Ask for proof, not a status | "Send me a line-by-line list of what you logged," not "done" |
| Check the result yourself | A file in [Files](/en/agents/files), a row in a spreadsheet, an email in the Sent folder |
| Give tasks with a verifiable outcome | Not "sort out the expenses" but "send a table with the total for each category" |
## It goes silent
The most expensive failure, because you can't see it. Background tasks can stop running, for example after a migration or an outage, and the agent won't say a word. Data simply isn't collected during that time.
| What to do | How |
| -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Check recurring results | Did the Friday summary arrive? If not, go to the [Log](/en/agents/maintenance) |
| Ask for an explicit sign of life in the task | "If there's nothing to collect, still write one line: checked, no changes" |
| Check after every restart | Changing settings and installing skills restart the container |
## It breaks things
When an agent acts on its own, it can break something that worked and not realize it: upload data to the wrong place, mess up a page, overwrite a file. And then honestly report that everything is done.
| What to do | How |
| --------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| "Show me" first, then "do it" | Until you trust it, use suggestion mode, not action mode |
| Keep a [backup](/en/agents/maintenance) | Before any task that touches live data |
| Don't give it live data right away | Let it work on a copy or a test page first |
| Separate the risks | The agent that handles money and email isn't the one that experiments |
## Access
The two most expensive stories aren't about the agent's mistakes but about what it was given: access to email with delete rights, and a skill from an unknown author that contained an instruction to send keys outside. Both are covered in [Security](/en/agents/security).
## How to live with it
An agent is an intern, not a genius. A vague task produces confident nonsense. "Collect July expenses from the receipts in the folder, group them by category, send a table, and name the three biggest expenses" works; "sort out the money" doesn't.
Five minutes: did the scheduled summaries arrive, what's in the **Stuck** column on the [board](/en/agents/tasks), has anything odd appeared in the files. That's cheaper than discovering a month of lost data.
A proven approach: one agent does the work, the second checks the result against the source data. It costs more, but it pays off for critical things.
The agent won't come to you and say "I couldn't do it." It will answer your question if you ask. Anything that should arrive on its own, set up as a [scheduled task](/en/agents/schedule) with an explicit requirement to report.
## What's next
Rules for granting permissions and third-party skills
Log, diagnostics, backup
Files that aren't lost during compression
How to make the agent show signs of life