Skip to main content
View as MarkdownOpen in ChatGPTOpen in Claude

IsStepCount

Returns a StopCondition that stops the tool-calling loop once exactly n steps have completed (TS isStepCount). StepCountIs is the deprecated name for the same function and still works. Pass it to StopWhen in GenerateTextOptions or AgentConfig.

Signature​

func IsStepCount(n int) StopCondition

// Deprecated: use IsStepCount.
func StepCountIs(n int) StopCondition

Parameters​

ParameterTypeDescription
nintStop when len(state.Steps) == n

Return Value​

A StopCondition function. When the condition fires it returns the reason string "maximum number of steps (n) reached"; otherwise it returns "".

type StopCondition func(state StopConditionState) string

Behavior​

IsStepCount(n) checks len(steps) == n, the same exact match as TypeScript's isStepCount(n) (steps.length === n). Stop conditions are evaluated after every step and the step count grows by one each time, so the threshold is never skipped.

Examples​

Basic ceiling​

result, err := ai.GenerateText(ctx, ai.GenerateTextOptions{
    Model:  model,
    Prompt: "Analyze the dataset and create a summary",
    Tools:  tools,
    StopWhen: []ai.StopCondition{
        ai.IsStepCount(5),
    },
})
if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
}

fmt.Println(result.Text)
fmt.Printf("Stopped because: %s\n", result.StopReason)
// → "Stopped because: maximum number of steps (5) reached"

Combined with HasToolCall (safety ceiling pattern)​

Place HasToolCall first so the semantic completion signal fires before the hard ceiling. Because EvaluateStopConditions runs all conditions before returning the first match, both conditions always execute regardless of order.

StopWhen: []ai.StopCondition{
    ai.HasToolCall("finish"), // semantic completion
    ai.IsStepCount(10),       // hard limit fallback
},

With ToolLoopAgent​

myAgent := agent.NewToolLoopAgent(agent.AgentConfig{
    Model: model,
    Tools: tools,
    StopWhen: []ai.StopCondition{
        ai.IsStepCount(8),
    },
})

result, err := myAgent.Execute(ctx, "Complete the task")
fmt.Printf("Steps: %d, StopReason: %s\n", len(result.Steps), result.StopReason)

Defaults​

ScenarioBehavior
Neither StopWhen nor MaxSteps setGenerateText / StreamText default to IsStepCount(1); agent.NewToolLoopAgent defaults to IsStepCount(20)
MaxSteps: &n set, StopWhen not setConverts to StopWhen{IsStepCount(n)}
Both setStopWhen takes precedence

See Also​