runaway-process-guard

To prevent an AI agent from getting stuck in an infinite loop, enforce strict wall-clock timeouts and semantic repetition detection to act as a circuit breaker for unresponsive processes.

The best way to monitor background processes for deadlocks is to apply semantic repetition detection that breaks circuit connections when polling statuses repeatedly show no change.

You can enforce a hard timeout for custom polling scripts by implementing programmatic wall-clock timeouts using functions like Date.now() to ensure loops terminate after a set duration.

You can terminate orphaned daemons and runaway scripts by applying immediate termination protocols that kill stuck processes directly when operational rules are violated.

Yes, this approach works with interactive terminal sessions by enforcing strict operational rules, applying circuit breakers, and executing termination protocols across custom scripts and terminal environments.

Semantic repetition detection matters for process management because it identifies when polling background statuses repeatedly show no change, triggering an immediate circuit breaker to prevent deadlocks.