23 published lessons with this tag.
Define specific signals that should prompt you to re-evaluate a schema.
Delegation without verification is abdication. Build lightweight checks to ensure delegated work meets your standards.
Agent monitoring provides the data you need to optimize your cognitive systems.
Every agent needs a clear definition of what success looks like in measurable terms. Without operational metrics, monitoring produces noise instead of signal.
Monitor too rarely and you miss problems; monitor too often and you create noise. Find the right cadence.
A dashboard gives you a single view of all your agents' health and performance.
Track how often each agent fires when it should and does not fire when it should not.
Effectiveness means your agent produces the intended outcome, not just that it runs.
Track how quickly each agent responds to its trigger.
An agent that fires when it shouldn't wastes your attention and erodes trust.
An agent that fails to fire when it should leaves you exposed to undetected problems — the silence feels like safety, but it is blindness.
Agents degrade over time unless actively maintained — monitoring catches drift before it becomes failure.
Monitoring itself costs attention and energy — the overhead must be justified by the value it provides.
Automate monitoring wherever possible to reduce overhead while maintaining visibility.
Written reflection is the oldest and most versatile form of self-monitoring.
The act of measuring creates a commitment loop — what you track, you take responsibility for.
Define clear thresholds that distinguish normal operation from problems requiring your attention.
A single measurement tells you where you are; a trend tells you where you are heading.
Too much monitoring data overwhelms attention and leads to ignoring signals that matter. The solution is not more data — it is fewer, sharper signals routed to the right layer of attention.
Compare agents against each other and against baselines to identify relative performance.
Monitoring without action is observation theater — data must drive decisions.
Monitoring completes the feedback loop — observation enables adjustment enables improvement.
New agents are most fragile in their first month — they need extra attention and support to survive.