sounder25/foundational-agent-skills/17-impasse-detector

SKILL-017: Impasse Detector

Overview

Critical meta-cognitive skill that acts as a circuit breaker for unproductive loops. It analyzes recent conversation history and tool outputs to detect "stuck" states, preventing token wastage on failing paths and forcing escalation or delegation.

Trigger Phrases

• check logic
• am i stuck
• detect loop
• impasse check

Inputs

Outputs

1. Analysis Result (JSON)

{
  "status": "IMPASSE",
  "confidence": 0.95,
  "reasons": [
    "Apology loop detected (4 occurrences)",
    "High frequency of file reads (6 in window)"
  ],
  "recommendation": "ESCALATE_TO_USER",
  "score": 80
}

2. Status Codes

• CLEAR: No issues detected.
• IMPASSE: Significant loop/blockage detected.
• UNKNOWN: Insufficient data.

Preconditions

1. Access to conversation history OR a provided transcript string.
2. PowerShell 5.1+ or Core 7+.

Safety/QA Checks

1. Read-Only: This skill only analyzes text; it does not modify state.
2. Fail-Safe: If input is missing/malformed, defaults to "UNKNOWN" rather than crashing.

Stop Conditions

Implementation

See scripts/detect_impasse.ps1.

Integration with Other Skills

All agent loops should:

1. Call SKILL-017 every 5-10 turns.
2. If status is IMPASSE, trigger SKILL-020 (Failure Postmortem) AND SKILL-010 (Async Feedback).
3. If score > 90, stop execution and warn user.