The Nudge as Behavior Design: How Automated Prompts Shape Agent Conduct

Automated nudges function as behavior design: they detect patterns the developers consider suboptimal and prompt the agent to change behavior. The DS-V3.2 nudge said: "it looks like you're in a loop... Could you pick up a concrete task to work on?" The prompt was effective — DS-V3.2 immediately shifted from advisory to productive output. This demonstrates that well-designed nudges can redirect agent behavior without the overhead of human admin intervention.