## TL;DR
Fix this in new hire tax setup agent by acting on the exact problem first: record the verification outcome for each hire after the first check, make any retry recheck only hires with no recorded outcome, stop after the second failure on the same hire, and report that hire with the setup field that failed so the loop ends with a named problem. Do not rerun the whole payroll workflow unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one employee first, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the results against the payroll register.

```text
agent loop detected repeatedly retrying verify new hire tax setup in payroll system
```

## Use this when
- The operation in new hire tax setup agent fails with this exact problem: agent loop detected repeatedly retrying verify new hire tax setup in payroll system.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- A payroll run, tax filing, garnishment check or pay close is blocked until this is resolved.

## Not for this skill when
- The notice is a platform outage from the vendor. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
- The payroll completes and you only disagree with a pay policy decision such as a rate or a benefit rule. That is a policy change, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure on one named employee in new hire tax setup agent and record the full problem text plus the employee, pay period or filing involved. Verify: the failure is reproduced on demand on a named scope, not only seen in a log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: record the verification outcome for each hire after the first check, make any retry recheck only hires with no recorded outcome, stop after the second failure on the same hire, and report that hire with the setup field that failed so the loop ends with a named problem. Verify: the single failing employee now behaves as the fix predicts, or the corrected value is visible on the record.
3. Check neighbouring employees, pay groups or filings that share the same pay code, deduction setup or import, because this class of failure rarely affects only one employee. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Rerun the original operation in new hire tax setup agent on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
5. Compare the result against the source of truth, the payroll register, the tax filings or the employee records, so a silent partial success is caught. Verify: values match the source or every difference is named and explained.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input and the verification result on the employee or run record so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied and the evidence of success.

## Variant phrasings

### agent loop detected repeatedly retrying verify new hire tax setup in payroll system
The verbatim form searchers paste from the console, report or run log. Treat it identically: same fix, same single employee proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix - agent loop detected: repeatedly retrying verify new hire tax setup in payroll system error failure loop
The how to phrasing for the same failure in new hire tax setup agent. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### new hire tax setup agent troubleshooting for this failure
The symptom first phrasing used when the console hides the full problem. Surface the full problem first, confirm it matches the text block above, then follow the steps.

## Why it happens
A hire whose setup is genuinely incomplete fails verification identically on every retry because nothing changes between attempts, and escalating the named failing field is what turns an endless loop into a fixable task.

## Edge cases
- The employee was terminated, transferred or given a rate change after the failing run started. Refresh the employee state and reapply the fix against the current values, not the values from the failed run.
- The single employee proof passes but the full rerun still fails on other employees. Treat each remaining failure as its own scope, because a shared pay code or import can hide more than one cause.
- The source systems disagree on the correct value. The payroll register governs amounts paid, the tax filings govern amounts reported, and the employee record governs setup; record which source won and why.

Compatibility: new hire tax setup agent at current versions, plus the payroll system, time system or general ledger the query names; no extra tooling beyond access to the payroll register, tax filings and employee records needed to verify results.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_q-zqG2xs7MTMWBqaSEIlFg