No-data, repeatable, reviewable

A cheap, well-approved agent can still hurt you if it does the wrong thing when something goes sideways. Three habits — none of which cost anything — make any agent trustworthy enough to run unattended.

1. A no-data / stale-data rule. The worst failure isn't an agent that crashes; it's one that quietly uses old data and reports it as current. If a source is down, the honest instruction is "report the failure instead of using old data," not "do your best." Tell your agent explicitly what to do when information is missing or stale, on every recurring task. Acting on yesterday's numbers as if they're today's is how a well-meaning agent causes a real mistake.

2. Make actions repeatable without piling up. Agents re-run — on a retry, a restart, or an overlapping schedule. If a task posts "daily summary" every run, two runs give you two posts; if it updates one daily summary, a double-run is harmless. Design actions so repeating them doesn't create duplicates or double-charges: update in place, or check "did I already do this today?" before acting.

3. Actually read the audit trail. All three agents can show you what they did and plan to do — Muse makes a complete audit trail a headline feature. That's only protection if you look at it, especially in the first days of a new task. Spend five minutes reviewing the first several runs of any agent before you trust it to run unwatched; that's where you catch an over-broad goal or a wrong assumption cheaply.

Underneath all three is one principle: assume the task will run at a bad moment — when the source is down, when it fires twice, when you're asleep — and make sure that costs you a delay, not a mess. An agent you've made boringly predictable is one you can actually leave alone.