12 August 2026 · 16 min read
Zombie Loops: The Long-Horizon Bug Nobody Codes For
Autonomous agents do not crash when they fail at long-horizon work. They keep running. The fix is a termination contract written before the loop starts: dual success conditions, pre-compaction checkpoints, and a verifier subagent that grades in a fresh context the loop cannot influence.
AI agents Maestro long-horizon reliability