AI agents can retry a failed request without knowing whether the first attempt already succeeded. That uncertainty becomes dangerous when APIs create records, send messages, or move money.

The Timeout That Creates Two Support Tickets

Imagine an AI agent responsible for handling customer complaints. It reads an incoming email, identifies the issue, and calls an API to create a support ticket. The API creates the ticket successfully, but the network connection drops before the agent receives the response.

From the agent's perspective, the operation failed. It retries the request. The API creates another ticket.

Now two employees may investigate the same complaint. If the operation involved issuing a refund, the consequences could be more serious.

This is not primarily a problem with the language model. It is a problem with how the application handles uncertain outcomes.…