I have a different way, but still trying to figure out how well it works. Instead of going into recursion, the agent is allowed to restart the thread by doing the summarize/debrief/reflect pass, writing key findings into persistent memory and rewriting the prompt whenever the context goes too large or it gets stuck. Recursion with TCO if you may.

In a way it's a generalization of the spec-driver approach, but in addition to the the formal spec the carryover buffer lives in the memory.