A conversational-agent design pattern, from Rags Vadali (Floto): an agent normally pursues a fixed set of conversational goals (going deep or broad to satisfy them), but must deliberately interrupt that goal-pursuit loop — a 'breakpoint' — when a user surfaces something serious, digging deeper before returning to (or abandoning) the original line of questioning.
Breakpoints are explicit triggers defined in advance ('if you hear this, stop everything and dig deep'), not left to the agent's judgment alone. The pattern reframes 'good listening' as an explicit control-flow override rather than a soft instruction.
Documented as the 'Critical Moments' section of a Product Experience Document (PXD). Conversation-closing design is a related but distinct concern in the same document: how an agent ends a conversation habituates the user toward or away from future engagement, even though it doesn't affect the current session.
Reported firsthand by a single founder at a ~3–6 person team (Floto) as of 2026; not externally validated at time of filing.