Agentic AI for Data Pipelines: Monitoring, Repair, and Exception Handling

How agents can help data teams by monitoring pipelines, diagnosing failures, and proposing safe fixes with human approval.

Published: 12/28/202513 min read

Agentic AI for Data Pipelines: Monitoring, Repair, and Exception Handling

Data pipelines fail in predictable ways, but diagnosing them can still take hours.

Agents help by reducing the search space.

Where agents help most

  • Detecting anomalies and failures
  • Gathering logs and context
  • Suggesting root causes
  • Drafting remediation steps
  • Filing tickets with complete details

Keep fixes gated

Agents can propose fixes, but production changes should be approved.

A safe pattern:

  1. Detect issue
  2. Gather evidence
  3. Propose likely causes
  4. Suggest fix options
  5. Human selects and approves
  6. Agent executes the approved change

What to log

  • Which pipeline
  • Failure type
  • Last successful run
  • Dependencies involved
  • Proposed fix and rationale

This creates a knowledge base over time.

Closing thought

The goal is not an autonomous pipeline repair robot.

The goal is faster diagnosis, cleaner handoffs, and fewer repeats.