Session Traces and Cost Controls Aid Diagnosis of AI Agent Failures

KEY POINTS

1. Session traces and cost controls are being highlighted as key observability techniques to diagnose AI agent failures: traces preserve execution context for post-incident debugging, while cost controls help detect tool-call loops and runaway spend.
2. The piece, by Mark Silvester, notes these approaches help teams spot and investigate incidents without losing critical state.
3. These techniques matter because they help engineering teams detect and investigate agent failures and runaway costs while retaining needed execution context for debugging.