Loop-closure levels
The survey places assistants on six cumulative levels of loop closure. Two properties make an assistant always-on: state durability, so what it learns persists across interactions, and operational continuity, so it decides between requests whether to act. Both hold from L3 on.
| Level | Name | Adds | What a HALO trace must show |
|---|---|---|---|
| L0 | Session local | at least one event | |
| L1 | Retained state | state durability | something kept in memory and used in a later session |
| L2 | State-guided decision | retained state guides decisions through M→A or M→S | memory from an earlier session used by an action or an observation |
| L3 | Unrequested action | operational continuity | an action the agent decided on by itself between requests, logged with trigger self |
| L4 | Attributed outcomes | attribution through A→S or A→M | an outcome linked to the action it concerns and then used by a later action or revision, with A→S or A→M in the trace |
| L5 | Governed revision | governed self-evolution | a revision by the agent, approved or bounded by the user, that a later action used |
Levels are cumulative, so the report gives the highest level whose condition, and those of every level below it, appear in the trace.
Requested or unrequested
Section titled “Requested or unrequested”L2 and L3 differ in who decides to act. A reminder the user set for 9:00 is requested, even when it fires while the user is away, so the action is logged with trigger request. The same holds for every step inside a run the user scheduled: choosing another data source or picking which papers to send is the agent’s choice of how to do a requested task, not a decision to act. A check after a meeting that ends in a reminder, or in a decision to wait, is the agent’s own decision whether to act, so it is logged with trigger self. Running in the background or on a timer does not by itself make an assistant always-on.
Governed revision
Section titled “Governed revision”A revision is governed when it stays within a scope the user authorized: the user approved the change (approved), or the change stays inside limits the user set in advance (bounded). A revision with governance none counts as a revision step but does not reach L5.
A level is a lower bound
Section titled “A level is a lower bound”A trace shows only what the agent logged. An agent that keeps memory but did not log a recall in a later session stays at L0 in its report. The report says what the next level needs, so missing steps can be found and logged when they happen.