There's a particular kind of frustration unique to AI-assisted development: you watch the agent fix the same error over and over, each fix spawning a new problem, while your codebase quietly deteriorates.
I've been there. Working on a Next.js project, I let an agent attempt to resolve TypeScript errors for over an hour — until the file was littered with any casts and the original problem was buried under layers of band-aids. The loop had turned a small fix into a regression.
The good news is that these loops aren't random. They follow recognizable patterns, and once you know what you're dealing with, stopping them is straightforward.
Three Kinds of Agent Loops
Before you do anything, identify which type of loop you're in. The fix strategy differs for each.
Fix Loop: The agent resolves an error, which creates another error, which it resolves again — forever. This usually happens with TypeScript type errors or lint violations when the agent is treating symptoms rather than the underlying cause.
Verification Loop: The agent makes a change, runs tests or type checks, sees failures, makes another change — and the cycle repeats. This happens when the test environment is in a broken state or the tests themselves are testing the wrong thing.
Context Loop: The agent loses track of what it has already done and starts repeating the same edits. This appears when the context window is near its limit, or when the project is large enough that the agent can no longer track its own changes.
To diagnose which loop you're in, watch two or three turns. Is the same file being edited repeatedly? Does the same error reappear after each fix? Are the agent's explanations changing even though it's doing the same thing? These three signals point to which loop you're dealing with.
Stop First, Diagnose Second
When you spot a loop, the most important thing is to stop the agent. Letting it continue only deepens the problem.
Press Esc or the stop button. Then open Checkpoints from the left sidebar — this is the fastest way to get back to a known-good state before the loop began.
# If checkpoints aren't sufficient, use git to inspect state
git status
git diff HEAD
git log --oneline -5To discard everything the agent changed during the loop:
# Stash the looped changes safely (you can recover them later)
git stash push -m "agent-loop-state"
git stash list
# Or discard entirely if you're sure
git checkout -- .Stashing is preferable to discarding — if it turns out the agent actually made some useful changes alongside the bad ones, you can cherry-pick them later.
Fixing Each Loop Type
Once you've stopped and assessed, address the root cause before starting again.
Fixing a Fix Loop
The core problem here is almost always that you gave the agent a goal without giving it context about why the errors exist. Telling an agent "fix the TypeScript errors" is like asking someone to fix your car without telling them what symptoms you noticed — they'll change things until the warning light goes off, regardless of whether the underlying problem is solved.
When restarting, try this prompt structure:
I'm seeing this error repeatedly, and each fix creates another error.
Before making any changes, please analyze the root cause and share your
hypothesis. Only start editing once we've agreed on the approach.
[paste the error here]
The phrase "share your hypothesis before editing" is the key part. It forces the agent into an analysis pass first, which breaks the reflexive fix-attempt cycle.
Fixing a Verification Loop
The first thing to try is resetting the test environment completely:
rm -rf node_modules/.cache
rm -rf .next
npm run test -- --clearCache 2>/dev/null || jest --clearCache
# Then run just the failing test in isolation
npx jest path/to/failing.test.ts --verboseIf the environment isn't the issue, the tests themselves may be the problem. Ask the agent directly: "Is this test supposed to pass with the current design, or has the design changed and the test not been updated?" It's surprisingly common to find that an agent is trying to fix a test that should simply be deleted or rewritten to reflect a design change.
Fixing a Context Loop
The most reliable solution for a context loop is to start a fresh conversation. The agent's working memory is gone — trying to fix the context in place rarely works.
When you open a new session, give it a clear state summary:
Current project state:
- Working on: src/components/UserProfile.tsx
- Already completed: type definitions (done), API integration (done)
- Remaining: update tests
- Important: UserProfile separates User and Profile types — don't merge them
Please handle only the test updates.
Tight scope + explicit context = far fewer loops. The agent knows exactly where to look and what not to touch.
Designing Prompts That Prevent Loops
Prevention is easier than recovery. A few habits make loops much rarer.
Break work into smaller pieces: "Fix everything" invites loops. "Fix only the type errors in this file, nothing else" gives the agent a bounded task it can complete cleanly. Once that's done, you move to the next step.
Ask for the plan before the action: For any non-trivial change, ask "which files will you modify?" before the agent starts. This takes five seconds and gives you a chance to course-correct before the changes start accumulating.
Paste errors directly: When something fails, copy the full error message and give it to the agent verbatim. "It's not working" requires the agent to guess at the problem, which is exactly the condition that produces fix loops. Raw error output gives it something concrete to work with.
Using Plan Mode as a Loop Prevention Tool
Antigravity's Plan Mode — triggered by pressing Shift+Enter or asking the agent to plan before acting — is one of the most underused loop-prevention tools available.
When you're about to ask for a complex change, try this instead:
I want to fix this error, but before you make any changes,
please walk me through your planned approach step by step.
I'll confirm before you start editing.
Error: [details here]
If the plan looks wrong, you can redirect it at that stage. You've stopped the loop before it begins.
For ongoing work, it's worth saving a AGENTS.md file at the root of your project with a brief description of the architecture. The agent reads this at the start of each task, which dramatically reduces context loops in large codebases.
When Nothing Works
If you've tried all of the above and the agent is still looping, check a couple of things.
First, try restarting the IDE. Antigravity occasionally has transient issues that clear on restart — and it takes less than a minute to rule out.
Second, consider whether the problem itself might be genuinely ambiguous. Some errors don't have a clean fix — they're the result of a design decision that needs to be made, not a bug that needs to be squashed. In those cases, the agent isn't looping because it's confused; it's looping because you haven't given it the design decision yet.
Agent loops are almost never the agent "being bad at its job." They're almost always a signal that it needs clearer context, a narrower scope, or a moment to think before acting. Stop early, identify the loop type, and give it the information it was missing — that sequence resolves the vast majority of cases.
Next time a loop starts, hit Esc, check your checkpoints, and take thirty seconds to think about what context the agent might be missing. That pause is usually enough.