OpenTelemetry and OpenFeature Together Form a Control Plane for AI Agent Loops

Modern AI agent loops require more than reactive logging — they need real-time self-reporting and dynamic behavioral controls to be safely operated. OpenTelemetry, when used as intended, gives a running loop continuous visibility into its own state, costs, and bottlenecks without waiting for a failure to trigger an investigation. OpenFeature complements this by allowing operators to change loop behavior — such as model selection, retry limits, or review strictness — instantly via feature flags, with no redeployment needed. Together, these tools form a control plane that enables what the author calls 'bounded autonomy': the loop runs unattended, but every meaningful intervention point is already wired in. Both tools predate the current AI wave by years, underscoring that autonomous agent loops are surfacing an old distributed-systems problem rather than creating an entirely new one.