nb: current models (e.g. GPT 5.6 Sol) are very good at long horizon tasks
they no longer need crutches or rube goldberg machines to keep them going
minimal agent harness is just a loop that loops until no more tool calls are coming
GPT 5.6 Sol continues to drive the loop until the task is done or it decides that it wants to present the user with information
at that point it is probably good to not automatically continue (!)
(YMMV of course, for some tasks it makes sense, then you can still add a loop around it + the necessary signals, the main thing I want to say is that what used to be essential to keep models going is no longer needed, current models can do long-horizon tasks way better than when these outer loops where necessary)
self-plug: "smol", is a minimal agent in ~20 lines of Go that implements this pattern (keeps going until no more tool calls):
https://github.com/smol-env/smol
works just fine
they no longer need crutches or rube goldberg machines to keep them going
minimal agent harness is just a loop that loops until no more tool calls are coming
GPT 5.6 Sol continues to drive the loop until the task is done or it decides that it wants to present the user with information
at that point it is probably good to not automatically continue (!)
(YMMV of course, for some tasks it makes sense, then you can still add a loop around it + the necessary signals, the main thing I want to say is that what used to be essential to keep models going is no longer needed, current models can do long-horizon tasks way better than when these outer loops where necessary)
self-plug: "smol", is a minimal agent in ~20 lines of Go that implements this pattern (keeps going until no more tool calls):
https://github.com/smol-env/smol
works just fine