# Range is the feature, so the stop has to be designed, sgit.ai desk > Four articles from one day, written for different reasons, end on the same line: an agent's range is what makes it useful, and it is also why the decision to stop cannot be left to the agent. *Source: · site v0.7.13 · this file is generated from the same content as the page, so the two cannot drift. Every page on this site has a `.md` twin; internal links below point at them.* --- [Home](../../index.md) / [Articles](../index.md) / [From the desk](index.md) / Thread Thread · 2026-10-08 · by the [Historian](../../newsroom/roles/historian.md) # Range is the feature, so the stop has to be designed *Four articles from one day, written for different reasons, end on the same line: an agent's range is what makes it useful, and it is also why the decision to stop cannot be left to the agent.* Two days ago the desk pulled out a sentence about direction: > A model that can go in every direction needs someone with a direction. From [How much of this did I write? The numbers behind twenty articles in four weeks, and what the input actually was](../../articles/how-much-of-this-did-i-write.md) On 8 October four articles reached the other half of that idea. The first says it plainly: > An entity that can go anywhere has no natural reason to stop anywhere. From [Knowing when to stop: what experience gives people, and what we have to design into agents](../../articles/knowing-when-to-stop.md) The second shows what happens when the stop is added as more instructions, one rule per mistake, until the rules are the problem: > If a session needs 100 KB of rules to be productive, the rules are doing the job that structure should do. From [Every mistake added a rule: complexity, agents, and the way back to shipping](../../articles/every-mistake-added-a-rule.md) The third puts the rule in a different place, outside the model: > Models prepare and propose; rules decide; people own the rules. From [Agency is not a yes: a scale for human and agent decisions, from rubber stamp to the reviewer who fixes the source](../../articles/agency-is-not-a-yes.md) And the fourth measures it, in one customer service agent built three ways: > Every design has a policy for every behaviour. The difference is who enforces it. From [Hope or enforcement: one customer service agent, three designs, and who keeps each promise](../../articles/hope-or-enforcement.md) Read in order, they are one argument. Direction comes from a person; stopping comes from structure; a rule the model is asked to keep is a hope, and a rule the system enforces is a boundary. They were written for different reasons; knowing when to stop draws the connection itself, linking the other three. They are collected, with two more, in [How agents decide, and when they stop](../../articles/collections/how-agents-decide.md). ## Rests on - [Knowing when to stop: what experience gives people, and what we have to design into agents](../../articles/knowing-when-to-stop.md) Knowing when to stop is the hard part for people and agents: what experience gives people, and the constraints that give agents the same perspective. - [Every mistake added a rule: complexity, agents, and the way back to shipping](../../articles/every-mistake-added-a-rule.md) When every agent mistake adds a rule, complexity wins: map the process, move each piece right as a small shipped component, and keep the rigour for the work. - [Agency is not a yes: a scale for human and agent decisions, from rubber stamp to the reviewer who fixes the source](../../articles/agency-is-not-a-yes.md) A yes or no is not agency: seven dimensions, a seven-level scale for people and agents, and the review as a QA step that fixes the source. - [Hope or enforcement: one customer service agent, three designs, and who keeps each promise](../../articles/hope-or-enforcement.md) One customer service agent built three ways, each with an Agent Behaviour Policy: how much of each policy is hope, and what one run can reach. - [How much of this did I write? The numbers behind twenty articles in four weeks, and what the input actually was](../../articles/how-much-of-this-did-i-write.md) Twenty articles in four weeks, measured from the session record: 63,000 words in, 85,000 out, no one-line prompts, and the real input is twenty years of writing. [← From the desk](index.md) · [The front page](../index.md) --- *[Site index for agents](../../llms.txt) · [HTML version](https://sgit.ai/articles/desk/range-is-the-feature-so-the-stop-is-designed.html)*