Did That Post Actually Go Through? Safely Retrying an Interrupted MCP Write Without Double-Executing
When an MCP write tool call is interrupted by a dropped connection, you can't tell whether the server ran it. Here's why naive retries cause double-execution, and a working wrapper that uses idempotency keys and a reconcile read to retry safely — with examples from an unattended pipeline.
When Your Cowork × GitHub MCP Triage Quietly Drifts Each Run — Field Notes on Idempotency and Label Boundaries
Cowork + GitHub MCP issue triage looks perfect on the first run, then quietly breaks when left unattended: duplicate comments, reclassification churn, rate exhaustion. Field notes on idempotent prompts, label-boundary self-audits, and request budgets that keep weekly triage stable.
I Watched an Agent Try to Fix a File It Had Already Fixed — Stale Shallow Clones and Refreshing Before You Decide
An unattended agent tried to re-fix a file it had already fixed. The cause was a days-old shallow clone it kept reading. Here is how to detect that staleness numerically and re-clone only before decisions.
An Unattended Agent That Wakes Up to a Blank Machine Every Time
A scheduled, unattended agent wakes up on a fresh disposable machine every run: paths it cannot write to, a filesystem that has not finished booting, a working directory that has vanished. Here is how to design state recovery into the first thirty seconds, drawn from real operational logs.
Making Claude Agent SDK Tools Idempotent — Stopping Double Execution with Deterministic Keys and an Outbox
An implementation log for stopping a Claude Agent SDK retry or session resume from processing the same payment twice. Three patterns — deterministic idempotency keys, an outbox, and a lightweight wrapper — with runnable code and production metrics.
Implementing the Saga Pattern in Claude Agent SDK — Compensating Transactions and Idempotency
A practical guide to building safe multi-step Claude Agent SDK workflows. We cover compensating transactions, idempotency keys, and partial-failure state recovery, all from patterns that have run in production.
Claude API Webhooks & Async Processing: Error Patterns and Recovery Strategies
A practical guide to handling errors when integrating Claude API with webhooks and async pipelines. Covers timeouts, duplicate processing, idempotency, dead-letter queues, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation with full Python examples.