Interface contracts: mismatched units/schemas cause silent disaster
Added 2026-07-14 · Last verified 2026-07-14
NASA lost the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 because one team produced output in imperial units while another consumed it as metric; the mismatch was never validated at the boundary. Lesson: every interface needs an enforced, typed contract. For agents: define strict tool schemas and validate types/units/formats at the tool boundary — never trust that the model and the tool agree on shape implicitly.
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Source: The Agent Loop — agent-loop.xyz. Curated in the open knowledge base (CC BY 4.0).