What should an AI agent do when a connection expires?

When an AI agent loses access to a connected service, it should stop dependent actions, preserve completed work and explain the specific reconnection needed. An expired connection is not evidence that the account contains no records. Recovery should restore the approved access scope without widening it.

Recognize the failure accurately

Imagine a calendar assistant trying to prepare tomorrow's schedule. An authentication error means it could not read the calendar. Reporting no meetings would turn an access failure into false business information.

Separate connection health from task result. The assistant can still provide a partial brief from verified sources, but it should label the unavailable calendar clearly.

Prepare a useful recovery note

• Affected service and account, without exposing credentials.
• Last verified step and artifacts already produced.
• Actions not attempted because access was unavailable.
• The approved reconnection route and person responsible.
• The first check to run after access returns.

Keep tokens and secrets out of messages, logs and screenshots. Use the product's credential management flow instead of asking teammates to paste sensitive values into a chat.

Resume from the checkpoint

After reconnection, verify the account identity and available permissions. Read a small known record before resuming the workflow. Check whether any external action was attempted before the error, and reconcile unknown outcomes before sending or writing again.

Do not restart the entire workflow by default. Earlier stages may already have created records or sent messages.

Turn repeated failures into maintenance work

If connections expire frequently, document the pattern and assign an owner. Check whether the integration uses the provider's supported authorization flow and whether account changes are being handled correctly. The operational goal is a recoverable service, not an assistant that repeatedly asks for access without remembering what it already completed.

Be Human editorial guidance. Examples are illustrative unless explicitly attributed. Sources provide background; implementation choices depend on your workflow.