Event Loop
The core cycle that waits for something to happen and then reacts to it, over and over.
Think of it like
A receptionist who sits at the desk, and every time the phone rings or someone walks in, handles it, then goes back to waiting.
Example
The agent’s event loop waits for a tool result, processes it, decides the next action, fires it, and returns to waiting.
How it actually works
The event loop is a foundational programming pattern — one thread that dispatches work as events arrive instead of blocking on each one. For agents it’s the heartbeat: receive an observation, run the model, dispatch an action, repeat. Understanding it matters because a blocked or stalled loop is a hung agent, and long-running tool calls have to be handled without freezing the whole thing.
For product teams
It’s the agent’s heartbeat — if it stalls, the agent silently stops responding.
For engineers
A single dispatch cycle that processes events (observations, tool results) as they arrive without blocking.
Related
- Agent Loop — The agent-specific version of this cycle.
- Task Queue — A source of events it reacts to.
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