Background: Despite major advances in HIV treatment and prevention, rapid HIV transmission within specific networks and communities remains an important challenge in the United States. Cluster detection and response (CDR), including molecular and time-space surveillance, is now central to identifying networks experiencing accelerated transmission. However, detecting a cluster is not equivalent to interrupting transmission. Objective: To examine the evolution and current architecture of U.S. HIV CDR, with particular attention to the pathway from surveillance signal to public-health intervention. Methods: Critical narrative review of epidemiological and implementation studies, cluster and outbreak investigations, surveillance evaluations, methodological literature, and authoritative public-health guidance. Findings: Molecular, time-space, epidemiological, clinical, partner-services, and community-informed evidence provide complementary but individually incomplete intelligence. Detected clusters are partial observations of networks that may be several times larger. Persistent weaknesses between signal generation and intervention include incomplete and delayed data, fragmented systems, multijurisdictional coordination, workforce and resource constraints, structural barriers, and concerns about trust, privacy, and equity. Published responses have coincided with improvements in testing, prevention, care, and transmission, but the contribution of detection itself is rarely separable from the multicomponent responses it triggers. Conclusions: A Detection-to-Action Framework is proposed—Detect, Interpret, Prioritize, Mobilize, Intervene, Evaluate, and Adapt—with equity, community partnership, and data stewardship as cross-cutting principles. Next-generation CDR should be judged not by the number or speed of clusters detected, but by its capacity to convert actionable signals into timely, equitable, community-informed interventions with measurable improvements in HIV prevention and care. Time-to-action should become a core performance metric.