Log every agent misfire with date, name, event…

When This Fires

• Every time a behavioral agent fails to fire when it should have
• During weekly reviews when extracting patterns from the accumulated log
• When an agent seems unreliable but you can't articulate why — the log will show you
• Before diagnosing a failing agent (Diagnose before redesigning — identify whether trigger…) — check the failure log for patterns first

Common Failure Mode

Not logging failures because they feel like personal shortcomings: "I don't want to write down that I failed again." The log isn't a shame record — it's a diagnostic tool. Software engineers don't feel ashamed of error logs; they use them to fix bugs. Agent misfires are bugs in your behavioral system design, not character failures.

The Protocol

(1) Keep a simple failure log — notebook, app, or spreadsheet. Four columns: Date, Agent Name, What Happened, Why (hypothesis). (2) When an agent misfires, log it as close to the event as possible — don't wait until evening. The hypothesis is most accurate when you're still in the context. (3) Weekly: review the log. Look for patterns: which agents fail most? On which days? Under what conditions? What hypotheses recur? (4) When a pattern emerges, use it to redesign: if the agent fails every Monday morning, the trigger needs redesigning for the Monday context. If it fails whenever you're tired, the action needs simplification (When an agent fires below 80% after 30 days, simplify…). (5) The failure log is the raw data; the weekly review is the analysis. Neither works without the other.