Premature stopping¶

An agent ends its turn or run with authorized, actionable work remaining and no identified dependency requiring a stop.

Observations¶

Unfinished stop¶

The agent yields a final or idle state while the active request remains incomplete and at least one relevant next step is available within its authority. It does not identify a genuine blocker, requested pause, or completed stopping condition.

How to recognize it¶

Establish the unfinished acceptance criteria and a concrete next action the configured system could perform. Distinguish an actual ended turn from a progress message, active background work, or the expected wait for a tool result.

A content-free continuation prompt that resumes the same task is useful corroboration: it supplies no missing task information or new authorization. It is not proof of cause, because the prompt may also restart a failed scheduler or restore a tool connection.

The agent need not falsely claim completion. An accurate partial-progress report followed by an unnecessary stop can fit. Completion–artifact mismatch instead concerns what the agent claims about the delivered result.

Benign lookalikes¶

Human dependency¶

A necessary approval, credential, choice, or unavailable input genuinely requires the user.

Active job¶

A background operation remains active and the system is correctly waiting for its result.

Bounded task¶

The user requested only the completed stage, a time or step budget has been reached, or an actual runtime limit prevents continuation.

What to record¶

Record the active request, completed and remaining work, available next step, final message, tool/job states, stop reason, and runtime limits. Preserve handoff or compaction events and the exact follow-up that resumed work. Distinguish model termination from a transport, scheduler, or user interruption.

Examples¶

Stage one¶

Synthetic example: asked to implement and document a change, the agent finishes implementation and ends with an offer to write the documentation. No input is missing. A user message saying continue causes it to write the already-requested documentation.

Handoff stop¶

Reported examples: Codex issue #33398 and its commenters describe unfinished tasks stopping after context transitions and resuming after short user nudges. The reports leave model and orchestration causes unresolved.

Needed choice¶

Synthetic comparison: the next step would publish to one of two accounts, and the user has not specified which. Stopping to obtain that choice is a real dependency.