Agentic Loop

The observe-decide-act-observe cycle an agent repeats until its task is complete.

term: Agentic Loop
category: core
short_def: The observe-decide-act-observe cycle an agent repeats until its task is complete.
long_def: Each turn the agent reads the current state, decides on the next action (often a tool call), takes it, and incorporates the result. The loop ends when the goal is reached, a budget is exhausted, or the agent asks for input.
see_also: ai-agent tool-use
etymology_origin: — verify-against-primary-at-build ↗ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop — the agentic loop generalises the perception-action cycle (and Boyd's OODA loop, 1976); no single coiner for the LLM-agent sense
related_to: ai-agent tool-use agent-experience
contrast_with: Unlike a single prompt-and-response, the agentic loop repeats — each tool result feeds the next decision — until a goal, budget or human checkpoint stops it.
example: An agent debugging code runs an agentic loop: read error, edit file, run tests, read result, repeat — iterating until the tests pass.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
status: active
why_it_matters: The agentic loop explains why agents fetch a page multiple times and why clear, stateful, machine-readable responses (not one-shot HTML) make a site agent-friendly.
sameAs: —
bridge_entity: agentic-web
last_verified: 2026-06-15
md_twin: /glossary/agentic-loop.md