Pattern Automation
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What is agent on-call?

Agent on-call is the human + automation rotation when agent workloads need live response — incident triage, Ask queue backlog, connector outages, or runaway spend — with playbooks, not ad-hoc panic in chat.

In depth

Heartbeats and autonomous roles run 24/7; someone must answer when the system pages a human. Agent on-call covers:

- Ask queue SLA — approvals waiting block external work - Connector failures — OAuth expired, API down - Quality regressions — eval alert or spike in human reject rate - Cost anomalies — budget threshold breached - Security signals — unusual tool access pattern

Runbooks: pause role, rollback skill version, switch to read-only connectors, notify customers if needed.

On-call is not 'watch the agent chat all day.' It is pager-driven response to structured alerts from Neuro OS governance and monitoring.

Examples

  • Pager — Ask queue > 20 items; on-call approves or reassigns
  • Stripe connector 401 — on-call refreshes token; finance role resumes
  • Reject rate spike — rollback skill; open incident doc
  • Weekend — only critical heartbeats enabled; rest paused

Related terms

FAQ

Do agents replace human on-call?

No — they reduce noise. Humans handle exceptions and approvals.

What belongs in a runbook?

Pause role, rollback skill, contact owner, customer comms if external impact.

Run governed agent roles on a company OS — not only definitions in a glossary.