Step Budget

Problem

If termination relies on the model saying 'I am done', then a confused, stuck, or over-eager agent will simply never declare itself done, and the loop runs until something else stops it — a timeout, a crash, or an angry invoice at the end of the month. The team has no way to bound the worst-case cost or latency of a single request, and one pathological session can burn through more budget than thousands of normal ones combined. Without a hard numeric cap that the loop respects regardless of the model's opinion, runaway behaviour is always one bad prompt away.

Solution

Define a numeric cap (max_steps=N) in the agent loop. Increment per tool call or per loop iteration. When N is hit, terminate the loop and return the best partial answer with a note that the cap was reached.

When to use

• The agent has any kind of loop (ReAct, plan-execute, debate).
• Cost or latency must have a hard ceiling regardless of the agent's opinion.
• Runaway behaviour must be impossible by construction.