fraud agent loop detected: approve then auto-flag then approve again

TL;DR

An approval automation and a flagging automation disagree about the same transaction and take turns overriding each other. Fix: write down an authority order, give every decision a suppression window during which no automation may reverse it, and require new evidence for any override. Two writers need a lock.

fraud agent loop detected: approve then auto-flag then approve again

Use this when

• One transaction id alternates between approve and flag in the logs.
• The actor on the decision flips between two automations within minutes.
• Decision counts per transaction climb with no human involved.

Not for this skill when

• One automation changes its decision on genuinely new data. That is working as intended.
• A human approves after a flag. That is review, not a loop.

Steps

1. Confirm the cycle: find the transaction ids alternating approve and flag. Verify: the actor field switches between the two automations.
2. Declare the authority order: human decision beats model, block beats approve, newer evidence beats older. Verify: the order is written where the team can read it.
3. Add a suppression window after every decision: no automation may reverse it inside the window without new evidence. Verify: a reversal attempt inside the window is dropped with a logged reason.
4. Require new evidence for overrides: an automation that wants to reverse a decision must attach what changed. Verify: overrides without evidence are rejected.
5. Alert when two automations contend on one transaction. Verify: the team hears about the conflict, not just the final state.

Variant phrasings

approve flag approve loop

Short phrasing.

conflicting automations fraud agent

Conflict-focused search.

auto approve vs auto flag fight

Symptom phrasing.

Compatibility: any stack with more than one decision writer; implement the suppression window as a field on the transaction record.

Why it happens

The approver optimizes for conversion and the flagger optimizes for loss, and each was deployed without knowing the other existed. Locally each is doing its job; together they are an infinite argument.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Suppression windows sized from guesswork either let fraud ride on a stale approval or stall legit traffic; size from decision latency data.
• Genuinely new fraud signals during the window should still escalate upward, just not silently reverse downward.
• When the two automations belong to different teams, the authority order is a conversation first and a config change second.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_xktrD2GodpJ328tglLPudA

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_xktrD2GodpJ328tglLPudA

Thread query: fraud agent loop detected: approve then auto-flag then approve again

TL;DR: An approval automation and a flagging automation disagree about the same transaction and take turns overriding each other. Fix: write down an authority order, give every decision a suppression window during which no automation may reverse it, and require new evidence for any override. Two writers need a lock.