ACAgentic Craft

Intermediate~12 minHazelJS

Reflection / Critique Loop

Require a structured critique pass before committing answers or side effects—via loop stages or evaluator–optimizer.

Authors
editorial-team
Published
Last reviewed

Problem

Models emit low-quality first drafts without a structured second look.

Context

Adjacent to evaluator–optimizer; drafting, research synthesis, risky recommendations.

Forces and constraints

  • Critique improves quality
  • Doubles token cost
  • Critique without tools can hallucinate

Recommended design

Use loop stages including critique/validate, or a dedicated critic agent in a pipeline. Bound with maxIterations. Prefer grounded critique with retrieval tools when factual.

Minimal pseudocode

await runtime.execute('writer', goal, {
  loop: { maxIterations: 2, stages: ['execute', 'critique', 'validate'] },
  maxSteps: 10,
});

Failure modes

  • Unbounded critique loops
  • Critique rubber-stamping

Security considerations

  • No write tools during critique-only agents

Observability signals

  • Critique scores on timeline

Evaluation approach

Before/after quality rubrics; cost per accepted answer

Trade-offs

  • Latency/cost vs quality

Sources

Related patterns