Companies keep repeating failures they already wrote down. NODUS remembers what went wrong before, at your company and at others, and tells you in plain words when a new plan is about to repeat it.
Backups were failing silently, and nobody knew until they were needed.
2017
AWS
The status page broke along with the thing it reported on.
2017
Cloudflare
A routine change skipped the test run and went everywhere at once.
2019
CrowdStrike
A trusted update passed its one automated check and went out.
2024
Five famous failures. Different companies, different words, the same few mistakes.
Forgetting through new words
Most companies already know the answer. They just can’t find it in time.
Step 1
Something goes wrong.
A team writes down what happened and why, so it never happens again.
Step 2
Time passes.
A different team plans something new, in different words, for a different system.
Step 3
Nobody connects the two.
The new plan doesn't sound like the old failure, so nobody thinks to look.
The trouble is that we look for lessons by what things sound like. NODUS looks at how things are set up instead, and a setup doesn’t change when the words do.
What NODUS actually checks
Different words, same shape
Every lesson is a short checklist of facts about how a plan is set up. Here is the one learned from the Cloudflare and CrowdStrike outages, checked against a plan at a made-up freight company. The plan never mentions software, servers or security. It doesn’t need to.
Four facts are already true. The fifth is the step that would complete the failure, and it hasn’t happened yet. That is the moment NODUS speaks up.
A new plan
Refresh tariff tables for every depot
✓It's treated as a routine changealready true
✓It skips the usual small test run firstalready true
✓Only one automatic check stands in the wayalready true
✓Its warnings go to an inbox nobody readsalready true
It goes out to every depot at the same timenot yet, the step to avoid
4 of 5 already trueOne step away
Remembering through shape
Five things happen every time a plan is saved
Notice
A plan is saved. NODUS looks at how it's set up: who owns it, what checks it, where its warnings go.
Compare
It holds the plan up against every lesson it knows, one fact at a time.
Count
If all but one fact match, the plan is one step away from a known failure.
Warn
It tells the plan's owner which step to avoid, in plain words, and asks the person who warned last time.
Remember
Whatever the team decides is saved, so the next warning is wiser.
Message to Lena, the plan’s ownerOne step away
“Refresh tariff tables for every depot” already has 4 of the 5 facts behind a known failure. The last one is sending it to every depot at once. Consider not doing that as planned.
Nobody is recorded as watching the tariff-errors inbox.
Nobody is recorded as owning it either.
Asha Rao is invited: she asked for a small test run first the last time this happened.
What you see
A warning a person can act on
Which past failure the plan resembles, and why
The one step to avoid, before anyone takes it
What’s missing from the record, like an inbox nobody watches
Who to ask: the person who warned last time, never a score
Listen
Four notes, and the fifth held back
Each fact that’s already true plays a note. The last note, the one that would finish the tune, is the step not to take. Your ear hears that something is unfinished before your eyes do.
The plan as it isIf it took the last step
Trusting through honesty
Does it work?
Tested honestly, including where it falls short
What we tested
We wrote down the test before running it, then ran it once, on made-up plans.
Plans built like a past failure, in new wordscaught 18 of 18
Plans that use a failure’s words but are set up safely0 false alarms in 18
A plain keyword search, on the same plansflagged all 18 safe ones
What it can’t do
These limits matter, so they’re on the front page.
It only knows what’s recorded about a plan. Missing records hide risks.
It can’t tell how much is at stake: a tiny change set up riskily still gets a warning.
The test plans were made up. Real companies are messier.
SEE IT catch a mistake BEFORE IT HAPPENS
You get your own copy of a made-up company. Change a plan, take the risky step, and watch what NODUS says.
