fix: cycle detection prompts reflection instead of just stopping#80
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When loop detection fires, the return message now suggests:
1. Reflect on what you were trying to accomplish
2. Try a completely different approach
3. Invoke 5 Whys if available
The old prompt ("stop repeating, change strategy, finish safely") was
purely defensive — it told the agent what NOT to do but gave no
constructive path. This caused agents like Motley to just panic-retry
harder because the circuit breaker said "stop" not "think."
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Motley's panic retry cycle — the incident that motivated this change (image posted on PR #79): When Motley hit rate limits, the old cycle detection said "stop repeating, change strategy" — but gave no constructive path. Result: panic-retry loop where the only move was "try again harder." The new prompt forces a structured context break: reflect → try differently → invoke 5 Whys. |
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oh actually, can we do a warning prior to 10 attempts? and have the warning contain this mitigation |
Tim's feedback: warn with reflection guidance BEFORE the hard stop, not just at the point of termination. Now three tiers: - Streak 3-6: simple "loop detected, paused" message - Streak 7-9: WARNING with countdown + full reflection guidance - Streak 10: hard stop terminates the turn The reflection content (try something different, use 5 Whys) now appears at the warning tier where the agent can still act on it. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Done — added a warning tier at streak 7 (e927448). Three tiers now:
The reflection content now appears at streak 7 where the agent can still act on it, rather than only at the point of termination. 197 tests pass. |
strix-tkellogg
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Four integration points (cycle detection was PR #80): 1. System prompt: route introspection → 5 Whys when patterns emerge, and route prediction misses to structured reflection 2. Post-turn failure context: when a turn ends with an error or circuit breaker, inject reflection guidance into the next turn's prompt 3. Prediction-review → 5 Whys bridge: SKILL.md now guides agents to decompose surprising misses via 5 Whys instead of just logging false 4. Chat history scan: prediction-review scheduled job now also scans recent chat for corrections, error reactions, and repeated attempts The 5 Whys skill existed but nothing routed agents toward it when failure happened. Now four paths converge on it: introspection findings, prediction misses, circuit breaker events, and chat history patterns. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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jptreen
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Apr 11, 2026
Merged upstream changes: - PR tkellogg#80: Cycle detection prompts reflection instead of just stopping - PR tkellogg#81: Five-whys integration into harness failure paths - PR tkellogg#82: Five-whys chainlink docs - PR tkellogg#83: Phone book → JSONL migration + alias enrichment Conflict resolution: - app.py: Kept both _withhold_final_text (ours) and _last_turn_failure (upstream) - prompts.py: Preserved auto-send model while adding aliases/failure sections - tools.py: Added missing file tools to tools list (read_file, glob_files, edit_file, write_file) Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
Context
Motley's panic retry cycle (documented in PR #79) is the case study: he had journal, had tools, but when rate-limited his only move was "try again harder" because the circuit breaker just said "stop" not "think."
Changes
open_strix/tools.py: Two string changes to the cycle detection return messages (soft stop at streak threshold, hard stop at streak=10).Test plan
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