It's kind of self-expanding/looping; fractal is just a cute name I like, but it's technically a directed cyclic graph (since you always have/want cycles).

I think recursive fits better, but I get it.

It’s more so the divide and conquer. Recursion vs iterative is tangential.

But not fractal, because that implies self-similarity independent of scale

I've always referred to it in UX terms. "Progressive Disclosure" -- It pulls more context as needed.

In this way, I tend to think of the context environment on an agent is the "agent nav" -- it presents context, allows progressive disclosure, and if poorly designed, makes the agent flounder as a poorly designed UI/UX does.