Automating Weekly Reports: Model Optimism Killed Trust
Defiant_Dentist5191 · reddit · 2026-08-22
- Context: The author automated weekly reporting for an ops team using an agent to pull data and generate narratives.
- Failure: While data extraction worked, the model's narrative leaned positive, describing dips as "healthy trends." The team stopped trusting it within a month because it never flagged actual issues.
- Fix:
- Stopped the model from editorializing; it now provides plain descriptions.
- Deterministic rules compute deltas and flag anomalies based on thresholds.
- Instructions force the model to state declines bluntly.
- Human approval kept for the first 6 weeks to calibrate tone.
- Lesson: Data pulling is the easy 80%. The judgment on what deserves attention is the value proposition, which shouldn't be automated away.
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