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Agent Stuck Waiting for User Confirmation That Never Comes — Indefinite Pause

Symptom

• Agent says “I need your confirmation to proceed — please respond with yes or no”
• No response comes (user offline, notification missed, async flow)
• Agent remains alive but does nothing
• Hours later, agent still waiting
• No timeout, no fallback, no self-resolution
• Affects: autonomous agents, unattended runs, scheduled tasks

Root Cause

Agent designed with a human-in-the-loop confirmation step but deployed in an autonomous context without a timeout or default action. The agent correctly identifies a risky action and asks for confirmation — but the infrastructure doesn’t handle the case where confirmation never arrives.

Fix

Option 1: Set a confirmation timeout with default action

import asyncio

async def request_confirmation(question, timeout_seconds=300, default="abort"):
    """
    Ask for confirmation with timeout.
    default: 'proceed' or 'abort' if no response received.
    """
    print(f"\n{question}")
    print(f"(Auto-{default} in {timeout_seconds}s if no response)")

    try:
        response = await asyncio.wait_for(
            get_user_input(),  # Your input mechanism
            timeout=timeout_seconds
        )
        return response.strip().lower() in ("y", "yes", "proceed")
    except asyncio.TimeoutError:
        print(f"No response after {timeout_seconds}s — auto-{default}")
        return default == "proceed"

Option 2: Specify autonomous mode in system prompt

For autonomous agents that should not pause:

System prompt:
"You are operating in AUTONOMOUS mode. Do not ask for user confirmation.
For any action you are uncertain about:
- If reversible: proceed and report what you did
- If irreversible (delete, deploy, send): describe what you would do and skip it
- Never pause waiting for user input — this session is unattended

List all skipped irreversible actions in your final report."

Option 3: Define risky actions and their autonomous defaults

RISKY_ACTIONS_DEFAULT = {
    "delete_file": "skip",      # Skip deletions in autonomous mode
    "send_email": "skip",       # Skip sends in autonomous mode
    "deploy": "dry_run",        # Do dry-run instead of real deploy
    "push_to_main": "skip",     # Never push to main without confirmation
    "modify_database": "skip",  # Skip DB modifications
}

async def execute_action(action_type, **params):
    if IS_AUTONOMOUS and action_type in RISKY_ACTIONS_DEFAULT:
        default = RISKY_ACTIONS_DEFAULT[action_type]
        print(f"Autonomous mode: {action_type} → {default}")
        if default == "skip":
            return {"status": "skipped", "reason": "autonomous_mode"}
        if default == "dry_run":
            return await execute_dry_run(action_type, **params)
    return await execute_real(action_type, **params)

Option 4: Async confirmation via webhook/Telegram

import asyncio
from telegram import Bot

async def request_confirmation_async(question, timeout=600):
    """
    Send confirmation request to Telegram, wait for response with timeout.
    Returns True if confirmed, False if rejected or timed out.
    """
    bot = Bot(token=TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN)
    await bot.send_message(
        chat_id=TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID,
        text=f"⚠️ Agent confirmation needed:\n{question}\n\nReply YES or NO. Auto-abort in {timeout}s."
    )

    try:
        return await asyncio.wait_for(
            wait_for_telegram_response(TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID),
            timeout=timeout
        )
    except asyncio.TimeoutError:
        await bot.send_message(TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID, "No response — action aborted.")
        return False

Checklist for Autonomous Agent Deployments

• No input() calls or blocking confirmation requests in code paths
• All confirmation points have timeout + default behavior
• System prompt specifies autonomous mode behavior explicitly
• Irreversible actions either skipped or use dry-run in autonomous mode
• Alert sent if agent is blocked for >N minutes

Expected Token Savings

Agent stuck for 8 hours: 0 tokens wasted (it’s not running), but task is lost Proper timeout + fallback: task completes or fails cleanly

Environment

• Autonomous agents, scheduled tasks, unattended runs
• Any agent with human-in-the-loop confirmation steps
• Source: direct experience with production autonomous agent deployments

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