So I’ll start this thread out with sharing a stupid mistake I made… This one actually hurt a bit. I have an automation that generates YouTube thumbnails. It takes a prompt, sends it to Imagen4, and if Imagen rejects the image (safety filter), I rephrase the prompt with Claude and try again. Then one prompt hit this: Unable to show generated images. All images were filtered out because they violated Google’s Responsible AI practices. Try rephrasing the prompt. (support code: 63429089) In theory the workflow is simple: Take an input prompt Build the Imagen4 payload Generate image Check if an image was returned If yes → extract it, write it to disk, return link If no → rewrite prompt with Claude, retry The workflow was “working”… with one massive, easy-to-miss flaw. The fatal bug: My IF check for “did we get an image back?” wasn’t strict enough. Imagen returns a predictions[0] object even when it blocks the image, and in that case you get raiFilteredReason instead of a usable gcsUri. So I had runs where: - no valid image came back - the workflow routed into the “rewrite prompt with Claude” path - and because the prompt going into Claude could be empty / invalid, it would still rewrite it into something... Which means the system kept looping. No crashes. No obvious red flags. Just lots of Claude calls. Oh by the way, this happened over Christmas so I didn't see it for a few days... I noticed after the fact because Claude usage spiked and I’d burned around $85. Fix #1 — correct “image exists” check I tightened the IF so it only counts as “success” if we have a real GCS path: {{ !!($json?.predictions?.[0]?.gcsUri) && String($json.predictions[0].gcsUri).startsWith('gs://') }} So: True branch = we have a real image to download False branch = filtered / missing output → go to Claude rewrite (And if raiFilteredReason exists, that’s basically a guaranteed false branch.) Fix #2 — cost guard / attempt limiter Even with correct logic, I do not want any expensive step to run forever.

I’ve spent a long time building automation systems quietly. Pipelines, workflows, content engines, integrations... most of it invisible unless you were inside the project. I decided to open this community for one reason: Real systems are more convincing than explanations. Anyone can talk about automation. Very few people show what it looks like when: - things break - scale introduces new problems - workflows need to be refactored - systems have to run unattended This community is where I’ll document that process at a high level. Not tutorials. Not theory. Just real work, shared openly. I’ll post here when there’s something real to show.