Four characteristics for excellent agent work

I keep finding the same thing: excellent outcomes from agent work require four basic characteristics.

1. Curiosity. When I’m in doubt or uncertain, I ask the agent. What happened? What’s off? What does it see that I don’t?
2. Patience. Things will fail and break. When they do, I return to #1 until they don’t.
3. Attention to detail. I click through the work closely enough to notice what feels off.
4. Critical thought. I reason through why it’s off and how to resolve it - with #1, of course.

Attention to detail and critical thought are the critical path. One catches the issue; the other makes sense of it. Curiosity helps me resolve it.

There are skills and best practices to working with AI. I still find that every one I’ve learned is mediated through these four characteristics.

If I hit a ceiling or get super frustrated with agentic work, I check which of the four is lagging and go self-resource it.