I have been developing long lived self-directing agent loops. Longest with problem solving has been about 4 hours. Longest without problem solving has been nearer 8 hours until it was done.

The biggest problem is simply what we think is clear is confusing to the AIs. They seem like they speak English fluently but they are aliens. You need to force them to active listen first and write out what they understand then reload them with a clean context with the written understanding and confirm.

Ideation is also mostly limited to synthesis. So it’s better to work on problems that get progressively more complete towards a known objective rather than problems that require exploration.

> So it’s better to work on problems that get progressively more complete towards a known objective rather than problems that require exploration.

Yes. The longest I've had a self-directing agent loop running is a cumulative of three months. One goal, one purpose. Every now and then I modify the prompt in the background, and the agent picks up the updated prompt on the next loop.