Connector design should expose partial failures so agents can tell empty results from errors

A connector returning an empty array can signal several different outcomes, including a successful query with no matches, a request that failed before reaching the service, a partially loaded result, or unparseable data. The article argues these should be distinguished, since an agent cannot safely decide its next step if all of them appear as an empty list. It proposes returning results as structured reports that state the status (complete, empty, partial, retryable error, or action required), the source, the fetch time, and any continuation cursor or warnings. Continuation cursors should be saved only after a page is accepted, so an interrupted pagination can resume rather than presenting an incomplete list as complete. For write operations, the author recommends idempotency keys and recording whether an operation was confirmed, since a timeout after a write leaves the outcome ambiguous.