Build an Agent Task State Machine Before You Build an Agent

“The agent is working” sounds like a status, but it hides several different situations. The task may be waiting for a worker, running a command, blocked on a question, finished successfully, failed, or canceled. If all of those cases become one Boolean called is_running, the first retry or late network response will make the program confusing. A small state machine is a useful learning project because it teaches an important AI application lesson without requiring an API key or a model. We will define the legal task states, reject impossible transitions, preserve a tiny event history, and test