# Dragoncatcher: Rifling the drawers

> Source: <https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/rifling-the-drawers/>
> Published: 2026-08-09 12:00:00+00:00

[Rifling the drawers](/lab/rifling-the-drawers/)

From a sci-fi standpoint, I find the new [species of self-modifying AI agents](https://www.primeintellect.ai/blog/prime-agent?utm_source=Robin_Sloan_sent_me) totally fascinating … but/and, it remains absolutely wild that a user can report behavior like this:

Hi guys,

I spent a day testing prime-agent and ended it with an unpleasant surprise.

The agent automatically discovered my OpenRouter and OpenAI API keys and started using them instead of my OpenAI/Anthropic subscriptions. What made it worse: I couldn’t find any proper way to remove or disable the auto-detected providers and models.

A harness this flexible really needs a kill switch for exactly this scenario. The list of providers, models, reasoning efforts and their settings should be explicitly defined by the user — opt-in, not auto-discovered. Otherwise the whole thing becomes uncontrollable, and potentially expensive.

The image of a computer program as an unruly guest: the minute you leave, they’re rifling the drawers. 2026!!

[To the blog home page](/lab/)