Paid AI tools silently regress between versions — one user's golden test case defense
Ok-Independent3290 · reddit · 2026-09-18
A heavy-paying user of ChatGPT Pro and Claude Max reports that an AI document workflow used for months started dropping formatting and ignoring instructions after an update — with no changelog entry or announcement.
The real cost, the author argues, isn't rate limits or known model swaps (those can be planned around) but undocumented backsliding: silent regressions force re-testing prompts you already validated.
Mitigation: assume any agent you depend on will subtly degrade at some point, and keep a few golden test cases to re-run after every update.
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