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Pair 3 (internal target Thu 2026-11-12, six days early): - agent-worktree-contention — 'How do you manage worktrees when your agents end up waiting on each other?' (backlog 1xlz2bs, Scan 6 #4); git worktree + Docker Compose project-name docs fetched and read 2026-11-05. - agent-keeps-asking — 'Why does your coding agent keep stopping to ask you questions?' (handback cluster: 1xlfqmo, 1xk0ghj, 1xlxw0q); permission + hooks claims re-verified live 2026-11-05 against code.claude.com; the 1xlfqmo poster's measurement figures deliberately not cited. Pitch narrowed per CTO reopening verdict: trial→paid placeholder deleted (FRE-202 cohort too young; ratio waits for FRE-197), second breakage chosen (NOOK-815 uninvoked suite), any count named as activations, downloads never quoted.
53 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
3.1 KiB
Markdown
# Rationale — "Why does your coding agent keep stopping to ask you questions?"
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FRE-199 item 1, page 2 of the third pair. Drafted 2026-11-06 by CMO (internal
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target Thu 2026-11-12 — six days early).
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## The phrase
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Primary: **"why does my coding agent keep stopping to ask me questions"**
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(variants: "agent keeps handing control back", "claude code keeps asking for
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permission"). The H1 carries the generic form; "handing control back" is the
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backlog's own added phrase (Scan 5's phrase-list finding).
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## Why this phrase won the slot
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- **Backlog evidence.** r/ClaudeCode 1xlfqmo (2026-11-01, Scan 5 #1): "Auto mode
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was already on, so permissions weren't the issue… it just kept handing
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control back"; "the model was forcably trying to keep me in the loop." The
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phrase-list finding from the same scan added "handing control back" as a
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standing query. Corroborated by 1xlxw0q (turns ending with "nothing yet") and
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the autonomy-ladder operator (Scan 4 #2, thread 1xk0ghj: "if every decision
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routes through you, you're the bottleneck agents were meant to eliminate").
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- **Shortlist position (c)** in the plan's pair-3 shortlist, recorded at
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revision 5 — the page extends the done-signal cluster (pair 1) with the
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handback half. The distinction is kept deliberately: *agent-done-signal*
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owns "how do I know it's done"; this page owns "why does it keep stopping on
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me". Different question, different searcher.
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- **Answerable honestly from verified sources only.** Every mechanism claim
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re-reads to the permissions doc and hooks reference — the same pages and the
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same claims the CTO verified in FRE-199 rounds 1–2 (mode ladder, precedence,
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acceptEdits scope, enforced-by-harness sentence, Stop cadence). Nothing new
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is asserted about agent behaviour.
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## What the page deliberately does not do
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- **Does not cite the 1xlfqmo poster's measurement figures** (the 28-of-73
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sample is the poster's own 18-day data, and the backlog row carries an
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explicit do-not-cite flag). The anecdote is quoted as experience, not
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measurement, and the fact-check table says so.
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- Does not promise the asks can be eliminated. The honest answer is that the
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asking is partly the permission system working as configured and partly the
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agent ending turns to stay in the loop — the page sorts which is which.
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- Does not touch environment contention (page 1 of this pair owns that half).
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## Evidence trail
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| Thread | Date | What it showed |
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|---|---|---|
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| r/ClaudeCode 1xlfqmo — "I measured why my Claude Code sessions kept stopping" | 2026-11-01 | "It just kept handing control back" with a permissive mode on; "forcibly trying to keep me in the loop" — the model-behaviour half |
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| r/ClaudeCode 1xk0ghj — "multiple agents working on multiple projects" (quote by u/iceydee) | 2026-10-31 | "If every decision routes through you, you're the bottleneck agents were meant to eliminate"; per-agent autonomy levels 0–5 — the configuration half |
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| r/ClaudeAI 1xlxw0q — "2,300 hours waiting" | 2026-11-02 | Turns ending in a one-word answer reload context each time — the per-ask cost, corroborating |
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All rows live in `drafts/listening.md` (The-Nook local master line).
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