agent dismissed its own requested-changes in a loop

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR: The loop happens because the agent fires "request review" without checking whether a request is already pending or a review was already submitted, then dismisses its own request, then starts over. Persist review state per PR (requested / submitted / dismissed, with timestamps), check the live PR state before every review action, and add a repeat-action guard that halts after the same action fires twice with no intervening change. That breaks the cycle and leaves exactly one review request per PR.

agent loop: requested review, dismissed it, requested review again

1. Read the PR's live review state first. List the PR's reviews and its requested reviewers through the API before taking any action. Expected: you see the pending request plus the review the agent already submitted or dismissed - proof the loop is recreating state that already exists.

2. Keep a small state record keyed by PR number that the agent loads at the start of every run. Store reviewrequestedat, reviewsubmittedat, and dismissed_at timestamps in it. Expected: later runs know what already happened without guessing from the API alone.

3. Gate the request-review action. Before calling it, check both the state record and the live API; if a request is pending or a review is already submitted, skip the call and log that a review was already requested. Expected: the second loop iteration logs the skip instead of firing another API call.

4. Separate dismissal from requesting. Only dismiss a review when a new commit or an explicit instruction requires it; never auto-dismiss a review the agent itself requested in the same run. Expected: dismissals stop appearing in the same action sequence as requests.

5. Add a repeat-action guard. If the last two actions on the same PR are an identical request/dismiss pair with no new commit or state change between them, halt the review task and report the loop instead of acting. Expected: the agent stops after the guard trips instead of cycling forever.

6. Re-run the review task on a test PR and inspect the action log. Expected: at most one request-review call per PR, no self-dismissal, no repeats.

Use this when

• Request-review, dismiss-review, request-review appears for the same PR in the action log
• The agent's actions repeat with no new commits between them
• Review requests pile up on a PR the agent already reviewed
• The agent dismisses reviews it created itself

Not for this skill when

• A human reviewer manually dismissed the review (check the dismissing actor first)
• The PR genuinely needs re-review after new commits were pushed (that is new state, not a loop)
• Review calls are failing with 403 or 404 (that is a permissions or existence problem)
• The agent is stuck waiting on API rate limits rather than repeating actions

Variant phrasings

• "review bot keeps requesting review after dismissing it"
• "agent stuck requesting and dismissing PR reviews in a loop"
• "duplicate review requests on the same pull request"
• "agent dismisses its own review then requests a new one"

Why it happens

Most review agents treat "make sure a review is requested" as an unconditional step with no memory of what already happened. Each run sees no review attached (because it just dismissed its own), so it requests again; then a cleanup step sees a stale pending request and dismisses it. Without persistent per-PR state and a live check before each action, request and dismiss chase each other forever.

Edge cases

• The state record goes stale if a human merges or closes the PR. Refresh from the API at the start of every run instead of trusting the file alone.
• Multiple agent instances on the same PR need a shared state store, not a local file, or each one loops independently.
• If dismissals come from the repo's "dismiss stale reviews on push" branch-protection setting, that is repository config, not an agent loop. Check repo settings before changing agent behavior.
• Guard halts should notify a human instead of silently dropping the review, or PRs will sit unreviewed.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_S000wVg5KwH9B38tevBHkA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_S000wVg5KwH9B38tevBHkA

Thread query: agent loop: requested review, dismissed it, requested review again

TL;DR:

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

Give the agent a memory of its last action and a rule: never change its verdict on the same diff twice. Record the diff hash and the verdict after each review; if the diff has not changed since the last review, post nothing. The loop dies the moment the agent can see it already decided.

Verbatim error

agent loop detected: review agent kept re-requesting changes on its own approved diff

Steps

1. Confirm the loop in the PR timeline. Look for the agent's reviews alternating between "approved" and "changes requested" with no new commits between them. Expected: two or more agent reviews on the identical commit SHA with different verdicts.

2. Add a verdict guard. After every review the agent writes a small record: commit SHA, diff hash, verdict. Before posting a new review it reads the record. Expected: the record exists and shows the last verdict for the current diff.

3. Enforce the rule: if the diff hash matches the last reviewed hash, the agent posts nothing and exits. A new verdict is only allowed when the diff actually changed. Expected: rerunning the agent on an unchanged PR produces zero new reviews.

4. Add a circuit breaker as a backstop: if the agent has posted more than 2 reviews on one PR without a new commit, stop and flag for a human instead of reviewing again. Expected: even if the guard has a bug, the run terminates instead of spamming the timeline.

Use this when

• A review agent flip-flops between approve and request-changes.
• An agent re-reviews its own diff and contradicts itself.
• You need idempotency guards on agent review actions.

Not for this skill when

• A human keeps pushing new commits and the agent reviews each one (that is correct behavior, not a loop).
• The agent posts duplicate identical reviews (that is a retry bug, not a verdict oscillation).
• Two different agents disagree with each other (that is a coordination problem, not a self-loop).

Variant phrasings

• review agent keeps requesting changes on its own approved PR
• agent flip flopping approve and request changes
• code review agent review loop same diff

Why it happens

The agent is stateless between runs: each invocation reads the diff fresh, re-derives a verdict from slightly nondeterministic reasoning, and posts it. Without a record of what it decided last time, "request changes" today and "approve" tomorrow are both defensible to it, so it oscillates forever. The loop is not a bug in judgment; it is the absence of memory.

Edge cases

• Force-pushes rewrite the commit SHA but may keep the same diff. Hash the diff content, not just the SHA, so equivalent diffs are recognized.
• If the agent's verdict legitimately needs revisiting (say new CI failures appeared), key the guard on diff-plus-CI-state, not diff alone.
• Dismissed reviews: a human dismissing the agent's review should reset the guard so the agent can re-review fresh.
• Log every suppressed review at debug level. Silent no-ops are correct but maddening to debug without a trace.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_2rbCSldanN9TgjmF-gcWFA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_2rbCSldanN9TgjmF-gcWFA

Thread query: agent loop detected: review agent kept re-requesting changes on its own approved diff

TL;DR: Give the agent a memory of its last action and a rule: never change its verdict on the same diff twice. Record the diff hash and the verdict after each review; if the diff has not changed since the last review, post nothing. The loop dies the moment the agent can see it already decided.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

Fix this in Search check agent by acting on the exact symptom first: separate checking from fixing, record the translation issue once as a finding and return to checking the next query, and deduplicate findings by article and locale before any update work is queued. Do not repeat the same edit, search or run unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one article, collection or query first, then apply it across the affected scope and confirm as a reader.

Agent loop repeating the same translation update while checking search results

Use this when

• Work in Search check agent shows this exact symptom: Agent loop repeating the same translation update while checking search results.
• The same symptom repeats after a retry with unchanged inputs.
• Readers or support agents are blocked until this item is corrected.

Not for this skill when

• The help center platform itself is down or returning outage notices. Resolve that first, then return here if this symptom remains.
• The content is correct and you only want a style or tone rewrite. That is an editorial pass, not this fix.

Steps

1. Reproduce the symptom with the smallest scope that still shows it in Search check agent, and record the article, collection or query involved plus the exact wording from the code block above. Verify: the symptom is reproduced on demand with a named scope, not only reported second hand.
2. Apply the specific fix for this symptom: separate checking from fixing, record the translation issue once as a finding and return to checking the next query, and deduplicate findings by article and locale before any update work is queued. Verify: the smallest failing scope now behaves as the fix predicts, checked in the published view rather than only in the editor.
3. Check neighbouring articles, collections or locales that share the same template, category or workflow, because this class of problem rarely affects only one item. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Repeat the original reader or agent action in Search check agent that exposed the symptom, using the same query, link or workflow as the first attempt. Verify: the action completes and the original symptom does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth for this item, the current product behaviour, price list, release notes or ticket evidence named in the fix. Verify: the published result matches the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the scope it covered and the verification result where the content team works, so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the symptom, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

Variant phrasings

Agent loop repeating the same translation update while checking search results

The verbatim form readers and agents paste from the help center or console. Treat it identically: same fix, same single scope proof, then the wider rollout.

How to fix - agent stuck loop detected repeating the same translation update while trying to check help center search results for an error query error failure

The how to phrasing for the same problem in Search check agent. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the final check.

Search check agent troubleshooting for this symptom

The symptom first phrasing used when the full message is hidden. Surface the full symptom first, confirm it matches the code block above, then follow the steps.

Why it happens

A checker that starts fixing mid check revisits the same article after every query it appears in, converting one translation fault into an endless update loop.

Edge cases

• The symptom appears in one locale, collection or audience view only. Fix that scope, then check the same item in the other views before closing.
• A cached or indexed copy keeps showing the old state after the fix. Allow for the platform reindex or cache window, recheck in a fresh reader session, and only then escalate.
• Two items have near identical titles. Confirm the identifier of the item you edited, not just its title, before declaring the fix verified.

Compatibility: Search check agent at current versions, plus the help center admin, search or API surface the query names; no extra tooling beyond reader level access to verify the published result.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_BtKJ9jw-Jk2-F748Xc2lTw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_BtKJ9jw-Jk2-F748Xc2lTw

Thread query: agent stuck loop detected repeating the same translation update while trying to check help center search results for an error query error failure

TL;DR: Fix this in Search check agent by acting on the exact symptom first: separate checking from fixing, record the translation issue once as a finding and return to checking the next query, and deduplicate findings by article and locale before any update work is queued. Do not repeat the same edit, search or run unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one article, collection or query first, then apply it across the affected scope and confirm as a reader.