The Best Agents Know When to Stop
bolerbox · reddit · 2026-07-19
The author argues that the most trustworthy agent isn't the fastest, but the one that knows when to stop. Many failed agent systems force a task to completion despite missing inputs, weak sources, or risky next steps, ultimately producing confident but incorrect results, messy CRM updates, or erroneous public content.
For agents touching public-facing or client-side operations, they recommend adding "boring but crucial" stop states:
- ready to act
- needs better source material
- needs human approval
- missing context
- blocked by policy or risk
In practice, the agent must select a state before executing its final action. It may seem slower, but it makes the system controllable: silence is no longer treated as success, and uncertainty isn't masked behind a polished output. The author concludes by asking what stop states people are actually using in production.
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