An agent's execution container dies halfway through a task. What survives, and how does it recover?

Instruction: Separate durable session records, the control loop, and replaceable workers. Explain what can be restored, how stale workers are fenced, and when recovery must pause.

Context: Design recoverable agent execution with durable task evidence, verified artifacts, worker reconstruction, and explicit limits on resuming uncertain work.

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I'd keep the session record, task constraints, operation status, and durable artifact references outside the execution container. The control loop would treat a worker failure as a recorded tool error, not as the loss of the whole task...

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Work through these questions in order. Read the answer aloud, then explain it in your own words.

1. Start with the foundations

Build the vocabulary and explain the core decisions.

  1. When would you use a deterministic workflow instead of an agent? Free sample
  2. What state should persist between agent turns? Free sample
  3. How do you decide whether an agent should ask a human for approval? Free sample

2. Apply it to a real workflow

Practice diagnosis, validation, and everyday tradeoffs.

  1. How would you keep an agent from looping on the same failed action? Free sample
  2. When do multi-agent systems create more risk than value? Member answer
  3. An agent keeps choosing the wrong skill. How would you diagnose and fix its catalog? Member answer

3. Prepare for senior discussions

Explain failure boundaries, recovery, and production choices.

  1. Design an agent that can resume after partial failure without repeating side effects. Member answer
  2. After a model upgrade, how would you decide which agent-harness rules to remove? Member answer
  3. An agent's execution container dies halfway through a task. What survives, and how does it recover? Member answer

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