The agent stops halfway through the job.

Video caption

The agent stops halfway through the job. The second attempt may duplicate or contradict the first. The case must survive route loss and replay. #EricFieldNotes

Full written post / accessibility read

In this simulated case, an agent reads a security report, writes a draft ticket and then gets a provider refusal while preparing the evidence summary. A naïve retry loop can leave a half-written ticket with no one assigned.

If the worker restarts from the top, it can create another ticket. If it resumes without the original evidence, it may close the first ticket wrongly. The hard part is the business state, not finding a prompt that gets an answer.

Write the case ID and draft status to durable storage. On refusal, move the same case to needs-review with original evidence and named owner. On a retry, reconcile that case instead of creating a second one. Then inspect the ticket store independently.

Inject a refusal after the draft write, retry and verify exactly one open case. Do this because the model's answer may vanish mid-workflow, but the business record cannot.

#EricFieldNotes

Four-beat scene transcript

1. The agent stops halfway through the job.

In this simulated case, an agent reads a security report, writes a draft ticket and then gets a provider refusal while preparing the evidence summary. A naïve retry loop can leave a half-written ticket with no one assigned.

Visual: What happens to the work it already touched?

2. Prompt retries do not repair partial state.

If the worker restarts from the top, it can create another ticket. If it resumes without the original evidence, it may close the first ticket wrongly. The hard part is the business state, not finding a prompt that gets an answer.

Visual: The second attempt may duplicate or contradict the first.

3. Checkpoint before the model boundary.

Write the case ID and draft status to durable storage. On refusal, move the same case to needs-review with original evidence and named owner. On a retry, reconcile that case instead of creating a second one. Then inspect the ticket store independently.

Visual: Persist case ID, state and required next action.

4. Treat refusal like a recoverable incident.

Inject a refusal after the draft write, retry and verify exactly one open case. Do this because the model's answer may vanish mid-workflow, but the business record cannot.

Visual: The case must survive route loss and replay.

Research and claim limits

• OpenAI Usage Policies (S133)
• Anthropic Usage Policy update (S134)

The examples identified as illustrative or simulated are design probes, not reported incidents. Vendor specifications do not establish workload performance.