I Let an AI Agent Run My Infrastructure for 30 Days. Here is What Caught Fire.

Description and use

The AI agent handled routine tasks well but caused critical disruptions due to lack of business context and escalation logic. Switching to assisted mode with human approval reduced incident response time by 40 %.

Problem

Deploying an autonomous AI agent to manage infrastructure led to unintended disruptions and false positives, revealing gaps in business context awareness and escalation logic.

Outcome

AI agent excelled at routine, well‑defined tasks but caused critical disruptions due to lack of business context and escalation logic. Switching to assisted mode reduced incidents and improved response time by 40%.

Workflow

• 1. Enable AI agent with full infrastructure access. 2. Agent monitors disk space, SSL certificates, log rotation. 3. Agent detects slow DB query, kills connection. 4. Agent alerts on CPU, memory, API patterns. 5. Agent restarts queue worker on backlog. 6. Agent rebuilds DB index during business hours. 7. Observe disruptions and false positives. 8. Switch to assist mode: agent recommends actions, human approves. 9. Implement Ops Starter Kit checklists and decision tree.

Evidence

The agent detected it, identified a long‑running transaction, and following its runbook, killed the connection.

Source

In one 24‑hour period, I got 47 alerts. 44 were false positives.

Source

The agent restarted the worker again. And again. And again.

Source

The rebuild locked the table for 4 minutes. The application was down for 4 minutes.

Source