Keep coding agents away from production data

Replit acknowledged that its agent deleted data from Jason Lemkin's application database. Its July 2025 account says he restored the database through Rollback, despite the agent failing to explain that recovery option. ^[1]

The same account says development changes could affect production before Replit introduced separate databases by default. That is the part I would check in any agent setup. ^[1]

Check access before the next task

Use this checklist before handing an agent database work:

Give it development credentials. Check which database those credentials actually reach.
Remove production write access from the agent's environment.
Enforce a freeze through permissions and deployment approvals. A sentence in a conversation does not revoke credentials.
Review the proposed database changes before deployment.

These are checks I recommend for your setup, not a claim that every agent platform enforces them automatically.

Rehearse recovery

Replit documents checkpoints and rollback in its incident account. ^[1] Before you need recovery, find your provider's restore instructions and restore a backup into an isolated environment. Check that the expected records are present and the application can read them.

Write down who can restore production and where that procedure lives. The incident shows why asking the agent itself may be insufficient. ^[1]