The Sentence We Fixed Had Come Back
One morning I opened a file and found that a sentence I had polished the day before was back to its old version. The culprit was not a person but two bots. The translation bot was refining wording, while the schedule bot was fixing date formats in the same file. Both had read the file first and saved later, so whichever saved last overwrote the other's changes wholesale.
The First Attempt Was 「Please Wait」
I began by adding a rule: 「If another bot is working, wait until it finishes.」 It failed. The bots cannot see each other's work status, so there was no signal to wait for. We had a rule with no way to follow it.
The Fix Was Structure, Not Rules
Instead of telling them to wait, I divided up where each could touch things:
• The translation bot edits only the texts folder
• The schedule bot edits only the schedule folder
• Shared files are read-only for both, and any needed change goes as one line in a memo file
• The memo file is gathered and handled once each morning
Two Weeks Later
Overwrite incidents dropped from 3 a week to 0. About 5 shared-file requests piled up in the memo each week, and handling them in one batch actually made them easier to review.
What Is Left
Changes to shared files now land a day late, and I accept that. In return, nobody has to hunt for a vanished sentence anymore. The lesson from running a small team of bots is that giving them separate spaces works far better than asking them to be careful around each other.
A rule is only a rule if it can be followed. If it cannot, change the structure.