ENGINEERING

Designing an agent that knows when to stop

Long-running agents fail quietly by continuing past the point of usefulness. We cover the stopping criteria and self-checks we build into every agent loop.

Mekhos AI Labs·August 2026·8 min read

Designing an agent that knows when to stop

Why agents need stopping criteria

An agent that can continue indefinitely is not necessarily a better agent. In many workflows, knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing what action to take next.

How we decide when to stop

Our agent loops use explicit stopping criteria based on task completion, confidence, available evidence, and diminishing returns.

Avoiding unnecessary actions

The goal is to prevent unnecessary actions while still giving the system enough room to recover from incomplete or ambiguous work.

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