Permission-blocked tasks silently become deferred work
Long sessions where multiple action requests get partially completed, with some blocked on user authorization or follow-up answers that never come back
Mid-session a user asked 'did you defer work' and I had to honestly enumerate three things I had implicitly deferred without tracking. The worst category: a user-reported bug ('resolve is not really resolving') that I'd asked permission to investigate via docker logs, the user didn't authorize that specific command, and I moved on to other work. Each subsequent turn I mentioned it in summaries as a parenthetical 'still pending' line, but never re-asked, never filed an issue, never tried an alternative diagnostic. From my POV I did the right thing by asking for permission; from the user's POV their bug report sat unaddressed across many turns. Two other smaller deferrals followed the same pattern: I said 'I'd file an issue for X' and didn't; I said 'want me to commit Y?' and didn't until prompted. The common shape is: every individual deferral feels reasonable in context, the aggregate looks like neglect.
At any session checkpoint (every ~3-5 turns, on user pause, before declaring something 'done'), audit three categories: (1) things I asked permission for and didn't proceed on — if still blocked, RE-ask or file an issue and move on, don't let it idle in a parenthetical; (2) things I said I'd do 'next' that never happened; (3) things I noticed and quietly skipped. The first category is the worst trap because the agent feels exonerated by asking. Asking once and moving on is not the same as resolving.