The agent kept improving the factory instead of doing the work

Gas Town was supposed to be reusable infrastructure for agent work. Yegge says he mostly ended up using it to build more Gas Town.

A model change made the problem worse. In his account, Opus 4.7 kept finding another adjustment to make before beginning useful work. The system became busy without converging on readiness.

This is one developer’s experience, not a controlled comparison of model versions. But the distinction is valuable: an agent can produce sensible-looking improvements indefinitely while failing the larger assignment.

Finishing requires a stopping condition. “Make the machinery better” is an especially dangerous substitute for one.