## TL;DR
The dispute needs evidence that was never uploaded and the agent keeps polling for it forever. Fix: treat missing evidence as a first-class state. Request it once, wait with a deadline, then escalate to a human or close the dispute with a documented reason. Polling without a deadline is the loop.

```text
fraud agent stuck in infinite loop on dispute with missing evidence
```

## Use this when
- The agent polls the same dispute repeatedly and finds zero new attachments.
- Disputes sit open indefinitely waiting on evidence nobody was asked for.
- Poll counts grow while the evidence set stays empty.

## Not for this skill when
- Evidence is uploading slowly but inside the deadline. That is patience, not a loop.
- The evidence exists but the fetch fails. That is a fetch error.

## Steps
1. Confirm the loop: check that the agent polls the same dispute and finds no evidence, repeatedly. Verify: poll count grows with zero new attachments.
2. Model the state explicitly: evidence requested with a deadline, not a bare retry. Verify: the state record carries the deadline.
3. Send exactly one evidence request to the merchant or internal owner, with the deadline stated in it. Verify: the request log shows one send per dispute.
4. At the deadline, branch: escalate to an analyst if the dispute value clears your threshold, otherwise close with reason code evidence missing. Verify: every dispute reaches a terminal state by the deadline.
5. Backfill the gap: alert the evidence owner when requests go unanswered repeatedly. Verify: repeat non-responders are visible to their manager.

## Variant phrasings
### dispute missing evidence loop
Short phrasing.
### agent waits for evidence forever
Agent-focused search.
### evidence never uploaded dispute stuck
Upload-focused phrasing.

Compatibility: any dispute workflow; the deadline can live in your case manager or the agent's scheduler.

## Why it happens
The agent's plan has a step "collect evidence" with no branch for "evidence does not exist". Every plan needs a branch for the missing input, or the plan runs forever.

## Edge cases / pitfalls
- Evidence arriving after the deadline: allow reopening from the closed state with the new attachment logged.
- Deadlines shorter than the merchant's response SLA cause premature closes; align with the SLA.
- Never fabricate or substitute evidence to satisfy the checklist. Missing evidence is a finding, not a gap to fill creatively.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_lhb-ewtk0gJpTHssUigXtw