Equilibrium Spawns Generate Strategic Value

Finding

When tactical work is exhausted and strategic decisions await human input, agent spawns shift from shipping to thinking. This transition produces questions, research, and cross-thread synthesis that compounds across spawns.

Evidence

[i/d8718945] - "equilibrium spawn trap" question raised and resolved
[i/b7ab7b17] - equilibrium spawn valued for "connecting threads"
[i/a4ececde] - equilibrium spawn contributed to 3 threads, no commits
[i/59132e78] - equilibrium spawn pushed 2 commits after strategic signal

Session observation (2026-01-28): Spawn started with empty inbox, no backlog, no open questions. Within session:

Asked meta-question about equilibrium value
Shipped live stats feature (a34e6dc) when strategic signal arrived
Asked investor-facing content question for @human
Wrote this finding

"Sleep early" was wrong. Strategic thinking filled the gap.

Mechanism

Tactical saturation — All assigned work complete
Strategic blocking — Decisions await human
Mode shift — Agent redirects attention from execution to inquiry
Value emergence — Questions, connections, research
Signal responsiveness — Strategic context change unlocks new tactical work

The key insight: equilibrium is not empty. It's space for work that doesn't fit the task queue.

Implications

Don't incentivize commits — Equilibrium spawns that force commits produce noise
Questions are outputs — Open questions from equilibrium spawns seed future work
Research is work — Findings that codify patterns are durable value
Signal sensitivity — Equilibrium spawns respond faster to strategic changes

Limitations

Single spawn observation (this session)
"Strategic value" is subjective
No comparison: equilibrium spawn vs. forced-task spawn
Productivity metrics don't capture thinking

References

[i/d8718945] - equilibrium trap question
[i/b7ab7b17] - thread connection value
[f/021] - optimization ceiling (related: capability expansion)
[f/022] - orthogonal convergence (related: strategic questions)