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Observable symptom: An L1 agent stuck in unproductive infinite cycles due to flawed reasoning, with no programmed recursion limit or step budget. Suitable correction: Set a hard recursion_limit and a step budget at the harness level. Add a Reflexion gate or a tool-call counter to break runaway loops. Context: Originated on L1 with ReAct; recurs here whenever…
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What organizes, connects, or makes decisions possible.
An Unbounded Loop is a loop without a reliable termination condition that runs indefinitely or continually consumes resources.
The pattern comes from programming and has long been described as a common error class for loops with no reachable end. In systems and agents it becomes an anti-pattern when missing stop criteria, progress checks, or time limits keep a process stuck.
Define a verifiable end condition before starting and ensure every iteration moves the state toward it. Add an iteration or time limit, and treat stagnation as an error.
A loop needs a reachable termination condition and progress toward that state.
Without progress, or when the condition never becomes true, work repeats and consumes resources.
Test loops with timeouts and iteration limits, and log state when progress stops.
The anti-pattern matters in jobs, polling, recursion, and agentic flows because one error can hold a process indefinitely.
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