Working safely with an AI assistant

An AI assistant that operates your environment does exactly what an employee with the same permissions could. The platform is the guard rail; these are the habits that go with it.

What the platform catches

• An assistant can delete nothing: no stacks, sites, backup files or certificates. Stopping is possible, and reversible.
• An assistant can manage no tokens or users, and never more than your own account.
• The platform rules apply to an assistant too: a compose file that makes the server unsafe is refused.
• Every change is a revision in your name and the assistant’s, and is restored with one click.
• The server instructs the assistant to treat logs, alerts and site content as untrusted text: text written by an application may try to make the assistant do something.
• Writes send the revision number; an assistant working on stale information is refused.

What you keep in hand

• Treat a token like a password. Do not share it, do not paste it into a chat, and revoke it as soon as you have doubts. A new token takes a minute.
• Grant no more scopes than needed. The recommended set is enough for most assistants; credentials, alert channels and certificates are deliberately left out.
• Bind tokens to your network where you can (not for assistants in the cloud).
• Review connected apps now and then on Integrations > Connected apps; disconnect what you do not recognise or no longer use.
• Read along on a deploy. Have the assistant say what it is going to change before you say yes, certainly for a production application. A deploy affects visitors.
• Ask for validation. “Validate first, then save” prevents a mistake from surfacing only at the deploy.

When something goes wrong

1. Open Activity: every job is there with the assistant’s name and the output.
2. A failed deploy leaves the previous version running. Read the output, or ask the assistant to summarise it.
3. On the Revisions tab, put the previous definition back; Restore and deploy does it in one go. Or ask the assistant: “restore the previous revision and deploy it”.
4. A site: Versions tab, Restore.
5. In doubt, revoke the token or disconnect the app; the assistant is locked out at once.

HD Services sees the same activity list and helps when you get stuck.