When Cloud Agents Make Sense
This guide helps you decide whether cloud agents are the right abstraction for your problem. Use cloud agents when:- The same class of issue returns weekly (or daily)
- The work is mostly handling (triage, patching, cleanup), not discovery
- Inputs come from tools like GitHub, error monitoring, security scanners, analytics
- You need a reviewable outcome (PR, report, ticket update)
- You want to reduce interruptions, not just respond faster
Great fits
- security remediation
- recurring error triage
- dependency hygiene
- analytics-driven fixes
Common triggers
- task dispatch
- schedules
- event webhooks
When Cloud Agents Are a Bad Idea
Avoid cloud agents when:- The problem is novel and poorly understood
- The blast radius is unclear
- Ownership is ambiguous (“someone should handle this”)
- You can’t define review criteria
- The work is better solved by eliminating the root cause directly
Cloud Agents vs Alternatives
Comparison Matrix
| Feature | Scripts / CI Jobs | Local Agents (TUI) | Cloud Agents (Headless) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Logic | Deterministic (If/Then) | AI / Probabilistic | AI / Probabilistic |
| Context | Inputs only | Full Repo + User Chat | Repo + Integrations (Snyk/GitHub/etc.) |
| Interaction | None (Logs only) | Interactive (Conversations) | Autonomous (Fire & Forget) |
| Tool Access | Unlimited | All (Ask permission supported) | Safe (No “Ask” tools) |
| Best For | Testing, Building, Linting | Debugging, Refactoring, Exploration | Triage, Remediation, Reporting |
The Decision Checklist
Use cloud agents if you can say “yes” to most of these:- We’ve seen this problem at least twice
- Inputs come from shared systems (alerts, issues, analytics)
- We can define what “good output” looks like
- A PR/report is an acceptable artifact
- Someone owns reviewing the result
- We can start in a manual or assisted mode
If you’re unsure, start with a one-off task and treat it like an experiment.