Closed-loop automation

A script that tells you something broke is a smoke alarm. The job is to put out the fire and check that it stayed out.

Report-only automation is half done. It moves the noticing off your plate and leaves the doing on it. Worse, it trains you to skim alerts.

A closed loop has four parts:

1. Detect the problem.
2. Fix it, using a known, safe action.
3. Verify the fix worked, against the real output.
4. Log what happened, so a human can audit a sample.

If the fix is not safe to run on its own, the loop ends in a clear hand-off with everything the human needs, not a vague alert.