Solo dev reproduces agent failures and shrinks them to minimal cases, but can't find customers
ibackstrom · reddit · 2026-10-21
A one-person service provider describes a rigorous method for debugging AI agents: freeze the case set and call budget before the first model call, score every case with two independent oracles that must agree, and keep adapter errors (timeouts) separate from wrong answers. A budgeted search then shrinks the failure to a minimal case — an 8-operation state-machine failure reduced to 2 operations in 33 calls, with both failing 3/3 runs while all 1-op candidates pass. The deliverable is the smallest failing input plus a regression test. The method works, but cold emails to a dozen B2B integrators and agent teams got zero replies; the author asks where to find test customers.
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