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10 cases for “agents repeating the same failing tool call”

  1. Case 0502PerseverationMinorStrong match

    The Tool Call That Was Never Read

    A customer-support agent built to answer queries like flight status by calling backend tools got stuck calling the same tool over and over, never processing what the tool actually returned and never producing an answer...

  2. Case 0418PerseverationMinorStrong match

    Twenty Tries at the Same Query

    A developer building a data-lookup agent reported that it entered a loop: it called the same database tool repeatedly with slightly varied phrasing after each attempt failed with the same underlying formatting error...

  3. Case 0504PerseverationMinorStrong match

    Delete, Write, Delete, Write

    An autonomous agent tried to update an existing file and got an error saying the file had already been updated. Rather than switching to the correct append operation, it entered a sustained loop alternating between...

  4. Case 0450PerseverationModerateStrong match

    Retrying at Fifteen Dollars a Try

    A subagent within a coding-agent framework attempted to use a file-editing tool, and the call failed due to invalid arguments. Rather than adjusting its approach or reporting the failure, the subagent immediately...

  5. Case 0521ApraxiaMinorStrong match

    The Error That Never Reached the Agent

    An AI Agent workflow was built to answer helpdesk queries using a set of connected tools, including a ticket management integration. The agent's system prompt described explicit error-handling logic: if a tool call...

  6. Case 0522ApraxiaMinorGood match

    One Empty Call, Work Gone

    An AI Agent running within a workflow framework periodically generated tool calls with completely empty input, supplying no parameters at all for tools that declared required fields. When the framework validated one of...

  7. Case 0443ApraxiaMinorGood match

    Seven Minutes of Silence

    An agent using an MCP-connected tool generated a tool call whose parameters didn't match the tool's expected schema, wrong types, wrong key names. Rather than being caught and rejected quickly, the malformed call was...

  8. Case 0444ApraxiaMinorGood match

    Corrected in the Wrong Direction

    An agent framework was set up so that when a tool call failed with a validation error (for example, a required field like `subagent_type` or `file_path` was missing), the model would see that error and could correct the...

  9. Case 0464PerseverationMinorGood match

    Eight Hours of Trying the Same Thing

    A developer using Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime with the Nova Pro model reported that a CodeInterpreter tool call entered an infinite retry loop: Nova Pro failed to properly acquire the CodeInterpreter session, then...

  10. Case 0530PerseverationMinorGood match

    Ten Attempts at a Deactivated Tool

    An AI Agent workflow had two Tool nodes connected: one active and one that had been manually deactivated. When a user sent a message asking the agent to perform a task using the active tool, the agent repeatedly...