| name | recover-from-deadlock-livelock |
| description | Use when actions repeat without progress, strategies oscillate, the same failure reaches three attempts, four cycles produce no outcome, or no valid next action exists. |
Recover from Deadlock and Livelock
Core principle
Recovery reduces the search space. Read deadlock, livelock, and oscillation.
Procedure
- Stop repeating actions and freeze oscillating strategies.
- Restate objective, Definition of Done, evidence, and actual blocker.
- Compare recent actions semantically and name the unchanged outcome.
- Remove speculative branches and invalidated assumptions.
- Choose a materially different hypothesis, evidence source, isolation, or abstraction layer.
- Reduce the problem to the smallest reproducible blocker.
- Retry once.
- If no valid action remains, report Blocked, Evidence, and Needed input.
Quick reference
Same-strategy attempts: three. Stalled cycles: four. Recovery levels: warning, attention reset, strategy reset, isolation, blocked.
Common mistakes
- Calling a changed command a changed strategy.
- Expanding recovery into five new hypotheses.
- Declaring blocked after ordinary difficulty or one failure.
- Continuing to work after reporting an external blocker.
Stop condition
Stop when a different bounded action advances the objective or an evidenced external blocker is reported.
