Lesson 1091 of 1596
Agent loop fundamentals: planning, tools, and stop conditions
Build agent loops with explicit stop conditions, tool budgets, and observable steps — or watch them spiral.
Creators · AI Foundations · ~7 min read
The premise
Agent loops without explicit stop conditions and tool budgets fail expensively; observability is what turns a chaotic loop into a debuggable one.
What AI does well here
- Sketch a plan-act-observe loop with explicit termination.
- Draft tool-budget rules with owner for budget exceptions.
What AI cannot do
- Eliminate the cost of long agent runs.
- Replace runtime observability with logging alone.
Key terms in this lesson
Practice this safely
Use a small project example from your own work. The useful move is to compare the AI's draft against your goal, sources, and constraints before you trust it.
- 1Ask AI to explain plan-act loop in plain language, then underline anything that sounds uncertain or too broad.
- 2Give it one detail from "Agent loop fundamentals: planning, tools, and stop conditions" and ask for two possible next steps plus one reason each step might be wrong.
- 3Check tool budget against a trusted source, teacher, adult, expert, or original document before you use it.
End-of-lesson quiz
Check what stuck
10 questions · Score saves to your progress.
Tutor
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