Definition
Plain language
The part of the setup that does the ordinary work, while a second layer above it judges and rewrites it.
As stated in the literature
In a nested optimization scheme, the lower-level process optimizing a task metric under a fixed budget, whose code and behavior are the search space for the outer loop.
Also called: inner agent, outer loop, outer agent
Why it matters: Separating the doing from the judging is what makes self-improvement measurable, since the outer layer can compare versions of the inner loop on equal footing.
For example, the inner loop is the program actually trying to solve the data-science task, while the layer above it rewrites that program between attempts.
Heard on the show
“The outer loop is the planner.”Episode 027 — When AI Agents Build the Serving Stack: A Bet on Bespoke Infrastructure