What should an agent record when a research task reaches its stopping point?

Declare the task and exit rules before searching

Use a fictional task: reconcile one reported operating-cash-flow amount to its disclosed components for a specified company-period. The proposed task card permits two named document types, at most five retrieval attempts and fifteen minutes of research. Those numbers are invented planning choices, not recommended universal limits or product settings.

The card requires four checks: reported amount; period and units; every bridge component; and the arithmetic reconciliation. NIST’s AI RMF discusses specified scope, resource considerations and mechanisms to disengage systems inconsistent with intended use. The worksheet below is an original task-level design, not a NIST-prescribed checklist or a claim of automated compliance.

Record a supported completion without using the whole budget

The SEC’s beginners’ guide describes operating-cash-flow reconciliation using net income adjusted for noncash items and operating assets and liabilities. The following figures are stipulated, rather than extracted from a filing. In Record A, two fictional documents provide the required fields. The amount is $30 million for the stated year. The bridge contains profit $45 million, depreciation $10 million, a working-capital reduction of cash of $20 million, and other adjustments reducing cash by $5 million. The reconciliation is 45 + 10 − 20 − 5 = 30.

The completed stopping record says: required checks 4/4; retrieval attempts 2/5; time used 10/15 minutes; arithmetic difference zero; result supported within the stipulated documents and definitions. The agent need not consume the remaining attempts merely to make the report look thorough. This is an invented record, not a run of an actual research system.

Record an incomplete stop without inventing the balancing item

In Record B, the permitted available material contains profit 45, depreciation 10 and working-capital movement −20, but not the other-adjustments note. These known components sum to 35, leaving a difference of 5 against reported cash flow of 30. The five-attempt or fifteen-minute boundary is reached with that field unresolved.

The stopping record says: amount and period/units checked; component coverage incomplete; bridge unresolved by 5; task ended because the declared budget was reached. It may identify −5 as the algebraic amount needed to balance, but must not report that as a sourced adjustment or a discovered fact. Further work needs evidence, not a more confident narrative.

Record a critical conflict before combining incompatible numbers

In Record C, one document labels an amount in millions while another labels its candidate component in thousands, and the correspondence is not established. The record stops the combined calculation, names the conflicting fields and requests resolution. Remaining time does not make a mixed-unit result valid.

A denied or unavailable source can likewise prevent a required check; access limits are not an invitation to bypass controls. Save the supported partial findings and exact unresolved question. A later run should distinguish new evidence from an unchanged failure, rather than restarting an unlimited search or silently relaxing the original completion criteria.

Method, sources, and limits

The three original stopping records were checked on 27 October 2026. Zero arithmetic difference is necessary for this reconciliation but does not prove the source is accurate or the research question economically sufficient. AI assisted the draft; independent AI verification is required before publication and is not human financial-expert approval. No actual budget, account access or product capability was tested.