The COMPEL Glossary Graph visualizes relationships between framework terminology, showing how concepts interconnect across domains, stages, and pillars. Term nodes cluster by pillar affiliation while cross-references reveal semantic dependencies — for example, how risk appetite connects to control effectiveness, model governance, and assurance requirements. This network representation helps practitioners navigate the framework vocabulary and understand that COMPEL terminology forms a coherent conceptual system rather than isolated definitions.
COMPEL Glossary / agent-loop
Agent loop
The iterative pattern in which a model plans, calls tools, observes the results, and replans — continuing until a goal is met, an iteration budget is exhausted, or a human intervenes.
What this means in practice
The agent loop is the defining architectural element of agentic AI; its boundaries (tool set, iteration limit, halt conditions) are the primary levers for governance.
Synonyms
agent execution loop , agentic loop
See also
- ReAct — An agentic prompt pattern interleaving reasoning steps (Thought) and action steps (Act — typically a tool call) over multiple turns, with observations from each action feeding the next reasoning step.
- Tool use / function calling — A prompt pattern authorizing the model to request named functions with structured arguments — searching the web, reading a database, calling a calculator, triggering an API — rather than generating all answers from its weights.
- Excessive agency — A failure mode in which an LLM has been wired into tools and permissions whose blast radius exceeds what its supervision and validation logic can safely bound.
- Agent runtime — The execution substrate that hosts the agent loop, its tool calls, state, and recovery logic — e.g., LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, or OpenAI Agents SDK.