A classic shop-floor failure: a machinist builds a part to last year's drawing. The drawing was revised months ago. Nobody pulled the old copy from the binder at the machine.
Bots can make the exact same mistake.
Document control in ISO
ISO covers documented information. Among other things, it asks that documents are:
- approved before use
- reviewed and updated when needed
- identified by version
- available where they're needed
- protected from unintended changes
The plain-words version: the right version, at the point of use.
How bots end up on the wrong version
| How it happens | Example |
|---|---|
| A copy was pasted into chat | The bot works from the pasted text, not the file |
| Two files with the same name | One in drafts, one in approved |
| A website version and a file version | They drift apart |
| An old skill still loaded | The rule changed, the bot didn't |
| A summary instead of the source | Compaction turned the rule into a vague version of itself |
One master, everyone points to it
The fix is simple to say. Keep one master copy. Everything else points to it.
- A skill file references the one source file. It doesn't keep its own copy of the details.
- Bots read the file when they need it, not from memory.
- Old versions are moved to an archive, clearly marked, or deleted.
Version numbers help
Give important instruction files a revision number and date. "Revision 8, October 20, 2026." Then anyone, person or bot, can see which version they're on. When something goes wrong, you can tell whether the bot was on the current one.
A real example
Our AN Creation skills follow this pattern. Each bot's skill is a short stub that points to one source folder of office skills, and the set carries a version file. The skills also tell the bot to use those files, never website pages that might be out of date. One master, many readers.
This site works the same way. Drafts live in one folder. Only the approved folder gets published. Nobody publishes from a draft.
The shared-computer angle
In our setup, bots share one computer. See Your bots share one computer. That makes one master easy, because every bot can open the same file. It also makes stray copies easy, because any bot can save one. Folder rules matter.
What this means for you
- Pick the master for each important document.
- Point bots to the file, don't paste the contents.
- Put a revision number and date on instructions.
- Archive old versions so they can't be picked up by mistake.
A bot working from the wrong version is doing exactly what it was told. It was just told the wrong thing.