We put a coding agent in a while loop

the core might be - the difference between an LLM context window, and an agent's orders in a text. LLM itself is a core engine, running in an environment of some kind (instruct vs others?). Agents on the other hand, are descendants of the old Marvin Minsky stuff in a way.. it has objectives and capacities, at a glance. LLMs are connected to modern agents because input text is read to start the agent.. inner loops are intermediate outputs of LLM, in language. There is no "internal code" to this set of agents, it is speaking in code and text to the next part of the internal process.

There are probably big oversights or errors in that short explanation. The LLM engine, the runner of the engine, and the specifics of some environment, make a lot of overlap and all of it is quite complicated.

hth