You set the out-of-office, you shut the laptop, and for once you actually leave. The agents do not. By the second morning of the trip there are three pull requests waiting, a passing test run and a changelog nobody asked for, all stamped somewhere around three in the morning. For the agentic AI engineer, being away has stopped meaning the work stops.
This is the auto-reply drawn as the object it is: a clean outlined message card with the AUTO-REPLY label along the top and a small sent tick tucked into the opposite corner, exactly where a mail app confirms delivery. Below it, two heavy rows of condensed capitals say the whole thing plainly: I'M AWAY. MY AGENTS ARE NOT. The tick is the second joke. The reply went out, and so did everything else.
A pullover with a hood, for the breezy evenings by the water and the red-eye home.
It is the easy pick for the builder heading off on holiday with a job still running, and a good one for the partner or teammate who has watched them check the agent logs from a beach towel.
Out of office. Not out of commits.
