Carson: Never give AI agents direct production write keys
Ryan Carson · Most Valuable Skill of 2026: Managing AI Agents · Jul 24, 2026 · at 5:26
Ryan Carson, founder of Untangle and former Treehouse CEO, explains his security practices and safeguards when orchestrating autonomous AI agents.
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“It's very important to keep your keys safe, secure, and separated from the agent, right? So I've got all my prod write keys in one password. I do not give my agents a prod write keys. So production writing is dangerous, right? And your agents will do something bad. And so you need to set up a system where they ask you for the key when they need to write to prod, and then you go into one password, you copy and paste it into the session, and you're both very clear about what you're doing.”
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