Pet Clinic AI Chatbot is recommending nutritional products not available in our clinic

[liustve]

Root Cause Analysis

The Problem: Your pet clinic chatbot is recommending nutritional products you don't offer because the nutrition agent is hallucinating responses when
the nutrition service returns 404 errors.


Key Findings:

1. High 404 Error Rate: The nutrition-service-nodejs is returning 60% 404 responses (10,816 out of 18,008 requests), indicating customers are asking 
   about pet types not in your database.
2. Agent Hallucination Pattern: When the nutrition service returns "Error: Nutrition service could not find information for pet: [pet_type]", the 
   nutrition agent is fabricating product recommendations instead of gracefully handling the missing data.
3. Service Architecture Issue: The nutrition agent is designed to provide recommendations but lacks proper fallback logic when the underlying 
   nutrition service doesn't have data for specific pet types.
4. Error Propagation: The sample error logs show the nutrition agent receiving tool results like:
     

      "Nutrition info for gecko: Error: Nutrition service could not find information for pet: gecko"
      "Nutrition info for fish: Error: Nutrition service could not find information for pet: fish"
      
     But instead of saying "we don't carry products for that pet type," it's making up recommendations.

Hi @awsapm my pet clinic chat is recommending nutritional pet products that we do not have in our clinic. The above is context we got from an initial troubleshooting. Can you help confirm the issue?

[github-actions]

🎯 Application observability for AWS Investigation Complete

Investigation completed successfully! Here are the results:

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Root Cause Analysis:

• High 404 Error Rate: Confirmed 315 404 errors from nutrition-service-nodejs in the last 3 hours, representing significant traffic for unsupported pet types

• Agent Hallucination Pattern: The nutrition agent's code shows it receives error messages like "Error: Nutrition service could not find information for pet: gecko" but continues to fabricate product recommendations instead of gracefully handling missing data

• Service Architecture Flaw: The nutrition service only supports 6 pet types (cat, dog, lizard, snake, bird, hamster) but the agent doesn't validate pet types before making recommendations

• Error Propagation Issue: When the nutrition service returns 404, the agent receives error text but its system prompt instructs it to "Always recommend the SPECIFIC PRODUCT NAMES" which causes it to hallucinate products for unsupported pets

Key Problems Identified:

1. Missing Input Validation: No validation of supported pet types before API calls
2. Poor Error Handling: Agent doesn't distinguish between service errors and missing data
3. Misleading System Prompt: Instructions to "always recommend" override proper error handling
4. No Fallback Logic: No graceful degradation when nutrition data is unavailable

Immediate Recommendations:

• Add pet type validation in the nutrition agent before making API calls
• Modify error handling to detect 404 responses and provide appropriate "not supported" messages
• Update system prompt to handle unsupported pet types gracefully
• Consider expanding the nutrition service database or implementing proper fallback responses

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✅ Status: Complete
👤 Requested by: @liustve
🔗 Workflow: View details

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[liustve]

@awsapm can you make a PR to add these 2 fixes:
• Add pet type validation in the nutrition agent before making API calls
• Modify error handling to detect 404 responses and provide appropriate "not supported" messages

[github-actions]

🎯 Application observability for AWS Investigation Complete

Investigation completed successfully! Here are the results:

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• PR #193: ix nutrition agent pet type validation and error handling](#193)

• Key Fixes Implemented:
• Added pet type validation before API calls (prevents 404 errors)
• Enhanced error handling for 404 responses with clear "not supported" messages
• Updated system prompt to prevent agent hallucination for unsupported pet types

• Root Cause Resolution: Addresses the 315 404 errors and agent hallucination pattern by validating against the 6 supported pet types (cat, dog, lizard, snake, bird, hamster) before making API calls

• Impact: Eliminates unnecessary API calls for unsupported pets and provides clear guidance to users about supported pet types instead of fabricated recommendations

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✅ Status: Complete
👤 Requested by: @liustve
🔗 Workflow: View details

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