Human in the loop is not a switch: classify the commands

Human in the loop is usually implemented as a switch: approvals on, or approvals off. Both settings are wrong for an agent that runs shell commands, and you find that out the same way everyone does, which is by watching a long task die on its third ls . The stall looks like this. Your agent is working through something multi-step, it needs to look at a directory, the harness raises an approval, and the run stops dead waiting for a human who has gone to make coffee. Multiply that by forty tool…