Why Most Automations Fail in Real-World Use (and How to Fix It)

Building automations in a clean test environment is easy, it's when real users touch it that everything falls apart.

Here’s what usually breaks things:

⚠️ Random data formats (dates, phone numbers, emails)

⚠️ API limits that only appear at scale

⚠️ “Small” updates from tools that shift field names or IDs

⚠️ Missed error handling that sends data into the void

That’s why every workflow I build today includes:

✅ Validation steps before processing

✅ Retry logic with fallbacks

✅ Error alerts sent straight to Slack

✅ A “last successful run” tracker

Automations aren’t meant to be perfect, they’re meant to recover fast when things go wrong.

What’s the weirdest way one of your automations has failed in production?

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