It verifies the license against a local cache. The remote licensing check only occurs upon activating a license. Once activated, there is a local cached copy it uses that I happen to know about because I accidentally deleted it once. I start up Alteryx in an air-gapped environment on a routine basis. I wouldn't use the tool if it had to check a license server every time it started.

You're incorrect on your last statement. I'm a coder, and don't enjoy using Alteryx for more iterative/recursive operations, but I've built several macros that leverage loops and DO run the same set of commands until a condition is met. There are examples of this online.

Typically, when I run into more loop oriented operations, I use the python or R tool to write a snippet of code to perform the operation within the workflow.