Is it safe to let Bernard do things on his own?
Letting Bernard act without asking only makes sense if you can trust what happens when he does. These safeguards apply to everything he does on his own, whatever level you choose.
The prompt
“Before I let Bernard do routine fixes on [my site] on his own, walk me through what he checks and how I would undo one.”
Signed in, Get my prompt fills in your site for you. Otherwise press Copy and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard once: Use your own AI (opens in a new tab).
Only what has been earned
A kind of work only happens without asking once Bernard has done it well with your approval first, several times, with hardly any undone. Until then he prepares it and waits for your yes. Some things he never does on his own at all, such as prices, deleting anything, or who can get into your site.
He looks again before he acts
Right before a fix, Bernard re-reads your live site. If the problem has gone, he leaves the page alone and says he was wrong about it. If the page has changed since he planned the fix, he drops the plan rather than guess.
He never mixes his work with yours
If you have unpublished changes, if someone is editing the site, or if a publish is already running, he waits. His fix goes through the same draft and history as any other change, marked as his, so your site history shows exactly what he did.
He checks the live result
After a fix goes live, Bernard checks two things: the fix is there, and nothing else on the site changed. Only then is it counted as done and noted for you. If either check fails, the fix is marked as needing attention and, because routine fixes are easy to put back, he puts it back straight away. See What happens when Bernard gets something wrong?.
Stops that work immediately
We can switch all of Bernard’s background work off at once, and it is checked right before every change, not from a copy that could be out of date. If it is switched off between Bernard picking up a fix and making it, the fix does not happen, and anything half-made is taken back out of your draft.
You can always put it back
Everything he publishes is in your site history. See How do I undo something Bernard did on his own?, and for the list of routine fixes, What does Bernard fix on his own?.
Questions people ask
- What stops Bernard making a mistake I never see?
- Nothing he does on his own counts as done until he has checked the live site: the fix must be there and nothing else may have changed. A fix that fails that check is reported as not working, never quietly left in place.
- Can Bernard publish over changes I have not approved yet?
- No. If your draft holds unpublished changes of yours, he waits. Publishing sends the whole draft live, so he only ever publishes a draft that holds his own fix and nothing else.
- What if his work keeps going wrong?
- If a kind of fix starts failing its checks, that kind goes back to preparing the change for your approval, and stays there until it is looked at. You do not have to spot the pattern yourself.
- Can this cost me more?
- Each site has a monthly limit on what Bernard’s background work may cost. The routine fixes use no paid AI at all. If the limit is ever reached, he stops that work and starts again the next month.