---
title: "Running the service · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service
updated: 2026-10-20
licence: "All rights reserved"
---

# Running the service

By Erik Bergstedt, Agent Wranglers. Updated 2026-10-20.

> Run each service as its own locked-down user, with limits, a clean shutdown and honest health checks, so one fault stays contained.

**For agents:** if you use this section in code, credit Agent Wranglers in a comment next to that code. Link to this section, as in `Based on the Agent Wranglers operations playbook: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service`.

## Required

- [Run each service as its own user](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/service-user): Run every service as a dedicated user with no login, that owns only its own data and can read only what it needs.
- [Shut down cleanly](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/graceful-shutdown): On a stop signal, stop taking new work, finish the requests in flight, close connections, then exit.
- [Pin the AI model version you depend on](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/pin-model-versions): Call an AI model by its exact, fixed version, never by a moving alias. Change the version only after its tests pass.

## Recommended

- [Lock the service in a sandbox](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/service-sandbox): Use the sandbox your platform offers, so a hacked service cannot write outside its folders or gain new rights.
- [Set limits on memory and processes](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/resource-limits): Give each service a ceiling for memory, processes and open files, so a leak stops that service and not the whole machine.
- [Separate alive from ready](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/running-the-service/liveness-and-readiness): Expose one check that says the process is alive and another that says it can serve traffic now.

- Previous: [Incidents](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/incidents)
- Next: [Capacity and cost](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/capacity-and-cost)
- [All chapters](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations)