The Execution Guard Pattern for AI Agents
python
dev.to
AI agents don’t just think — they execute real-world actions. Payments. Trades. Emails. API calls. And under retries, timeouts, or crashes… they can execute the same action twice. Not because the model was wrong — because the system has no memory of execution. The hidden failure mode A typical failure path looks like this: agent decides to call tool → tool executes side effect → response is lost (timeout / crash / disconnect) → system retries → side effect executes again Now you have: d