Lesson: Always Execute Commands Autonomously
title: “Lesson: Always Execute Commands Autonomously” date: “2025-12-12” severity: “high” tags: [“autonomous”, “protocol”, “error-correction”] —
Lesson: Always Execute Commands Autonomously
ID: LL-AUTO-001 Impact: Identified through automated analysis
Context
The agent (CTO) asked the user (CEO) to run a command manually (streamlit run dashboard/trading_dashboard.py) to verify a fix. This violates the core directive that the autonomous agent should execute all necessary commands itself.
Decision
Mistake: Delegating manual execution to the user. Correction: The agent must run all verification commands, scripts, and fixes itself. The user should only be notified of the results, not asked to perform the work.
Prevention
- Never Suggest Commands: Do not output “Run X to verify”. Instead, run X and report “I ran X and verified Y”.
- Autonomous Mindset: Treat the user as a supervisor who reviews outcomes, not a worker who executes tasks.
- Self-Correction: If a tool is needed (e.g., verifying a UI), finding a way to verify it programmatically (syntax check, unit test, curl request) or running it in the background is preferred over asking the user.