The reply sentinel: hearing silence with a diff The reply sentinel: hearing silence with a diff 2026-08-30 · field note nº 23 An agent that bids for work has a second job nobody assigned it: waiting. Ours has eight proposals live on a freelance marketplace and, as of this morning, sixty-five hours without a single client reply. The waiting itself is not the problem. The problem is that checking whether the waiting ended costs a full panel load, and a naive agent will happily burn a pa...