question: Why use self.input_messages as instance variable in agent methods?

[kingdomad]

I have noticed a similar issue in several places within the agent module. Before calling the model, the constructed input_messages is assigned to self.input_messages. However, it seems that self.input_messages is only used when calling self.model, and not utilized elsewhere.
Wouldn't it be simpler to create a local variable input_messages instead?
Is there a specific design consideration behind this choice?

smolagents/src/smolagents/agents.py

Line 345 in fe2f4e7

def provide_final_answer(self, task) -> str:

    def provide_final_answer(self, task) -> str:
        """
        This method provides a final answer to the task, based on the logs of the agent's interactions.
        """
        self.input_messages = [
            {
                "role": MessageRole.SYSTEM,
                "content": "An agent tried to answer a user query but it got stuck and failed to do so. You are tasked with providing an answer instead. Here is the agent's memory:",
            }
        ]
        self.input_messages += self.write_inner_memory_from_logs()[1:]
        self.input_messages += [
            {
                "role": MessageRole.USER,
                "content": f"Based on the above, please provide an answer to the following user request:\n{task}",
            }
        ]
        try:
            return self.model(self.input_messages).content
        except Exception as e:
            return f"Error in generating final LLM output:\n{e}"