Agentic Systems: A Failure Modes Catalog

By C.W. Jameson · Published 20 November 2025 · Last reviewed 20 November 2025

Mode 7 — the agent decides it is done when it is not — accounts for 38% of the production failures I have logged. It is also the hardest to detect.

The sixteen ways a production AI agent system fails, rated by frequency and recovery cost.