A task you can't verify yet isn't done — agents need a 'deferred' task state
Key-Register-1969 · reddit · 2026-11-02
A substantive Reddit engineering discussion: most agent task states are binary (done/failed), which breaks on the most common real case — outcomes you can't confirm yet. Pending approvals, unreported external systems, data arriving tomorrow. Marking these done is a lie; marking them failed triggers retries of work possibly already in flight.
The author proposes a dedicated deferred state carrying four things: what's known, what's missing, what would resolve it, and when to recheck. The recheck trigger (time, event, or a human returning) separates deferred from quietly abandoned, and every deferred task needs an owner — an unwatched trigger is just a parking lot with a nicer name.
Key distinction: unknown is what a timeout leaves you with; deferred is a planned wait. Treating planned waits as failures wastes retries; treating unknowns as deferred wastes urgency. Main failure mode is deferred tasks accumulating — a daily sweep past the trigger keeps the state from becoming where tasks die politely.
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