It Worked Once

About this log

Who writes it, what goes in it, and how I handle being wrong.

CHECKED BYALI04 Nov 2026

I’m Ali. I come from SEO, and I can’t read code. I stand between AI and the people I work with: they know their business, not what AI can do for it. Sometimes they ask for something; often I see what they’ll need before they do. Either way, I build it with agents: apps, assistants, pages, the servers under them, whatever the job calls for. I say what I want, then check the result by using it and watching what it does live.

Comic, seven panels: Ali at his desk under the caption "In this city, everything says it works." Someone off-panel sighs "If only there was a solution for that"; Ali raises an eyebrow. The smug box agent on a throne says "Backups done. Tested. Perfect." A terminal shows exit 0, six nights running. Ali's phone shows the backups folder: 0 files, 0 bytes, while the box says "Done." Ali stares at the beaming box: "I can't read the code. I just know when it's lying."

The box is always sure. I check anyway.

What this log is

Every entry is one thing an agent got wrong, for me or for someone I work with. It says what broke and what it cost, why the agent got it wrong, and the fix: a prompt, a rule, a check or a script you can paste into your own setup. Entries are dated. If a claim rests on a check, the entry names it. If nothing was checked, it says so.

1 What broke

I asked an agent to clean up a stuck process. It closed every app I had open.

2 Why the agent got it wrong

It stopped processes by a three-letter name pattern and never checked what the pattern matched. My apps matched too.

3 The fix

The fix · rule
Before any command that stops, deletes or overwrites something:
1. List everything it would match, with owner and folder. Change nothing yet.
2. Wait for my OK.
3. Act only on the exact IDs from that list. Never by pattern.

From An agent killed my open apps with one pattern

Winning rarely feels like much to me, so the log doesn’t celebrate. The part I enjoy is building the thing, or finding a way through that nobody expected.

I’m patient by nature. The irritation has to go somewhere, and mostly it turns into migraines. The comics show the other half: a smug box that is always sure, and me, not reading the code.

What I won’t accept

Excuses. Confident claims with no evidence behind them. An agent that defends a wrong answer commits the same offence as a person who does it. A checklist run by someone who can’t say why each step is there is no better.

How entries end

Every entry on the home page gets one stamp.

  • Broke Something I built failed. The entry says what it cost.
  • Still open It isn't done. The entry lists what's left and the risk that leaves.
  • Fixed It broke and I fixed it. The entry names the check that proves it, and gives you the fix.

Corrections

I read what I publish and revise it when it’s wrong. When an entry turns out wrong, I change it and add a line to its revision record, so the old version stays on record. Nothing gets edited silently.

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