README.md

Loop Engineering

Purpose

Use this domain for repeated-work and schedule-ready owner selection.

Best-Practice Baseline

Current agent-engineering practice points to the same operating rule: prefer the smallest controllable workflow that can solve the repeated work, and promote an autonomous or scheduled loop only when its runtime contract is explicit.

A loop candidate is not ready just because an agent can keep calling tools. It needs a stable trigger, durable or replayable state when work can pause or resume, observable traces or logs, evaluation evidence, guardrails for risky inputs/outputs/tools, a human approval point for sensitive side effects, and a stop condition. When the control flow is known, use a workflow, hook, rule, script, command, or Skill-backed playbook before recommending a more autonomous agent loop.

Load When

• Repeated prompts, workflow friction, validation habits, or session evidence suggest a durable loop.
• Local entropy signals suggest a recurring engineering task, but the owner is still unclear.
• A report needs to decide whether work belongs in a Skill, automation, hook, command, script, custom agent, MCP-backed loop, or rule.
• An agent loop, evaluator-optimizer loop, background schedule, or approval workflow is being considered and needs a trigger/state/eval/safety check.

Owns

• demand-source-analysis.md: raw demand-source normalization before Loop Discovery chooses an owner.
• loop-discovery.md: durable loop owner selection.
• patterns/README.md: five composable operating patterns for scheduled inspection, event response, goal completion, proactive discovery, and system improvement after a loop and owner are proven.
• loop-spec-card.md: compact WHEN -> SEE -> DO -> CHECK -> STOP -> LEAVE card shape for proven candidates and examples.
• loop-primitives.md: primitive map for automation, worktree, Skill, plugin/connector, subagent, and state support.
• automation-readiness.md: schedule or automation readiness contract after Loop Discovery selects automation or schedule-ready.
• loop-state-ledger.md: state ledger contract for paused, recurring, background, or multi-run loops.
• learning-loop-patterns.md: longitudinal learning pattern signatures, recurrence thresholds, negative controls, claim types, and coverage reason codes before Loop Discovery selects a durable owner.

Does Not Own

• Agent instruction or host asset taxonomy; use ../agent-customize/routing.md.
• Skill or Skill-reference shaping after owner selection; use ../agent-customize/skill-discovery.md.
• Acceptance evidence, change-review triggers, sensitive code, or Git lifecycle safeguards; use ../project-harness/.
• Runtime persistence, tracing backends, external approvals, or background job execution. This domain selects the owner and required contract; it does not implement the runtime.

Read Next

• Use demand-source-analysis.md first when the input is a raw demand source, session signal, report row, local entropy hint, or repeated-work suspicion.
• Start with loop-discovery.md while the durable owner is undecided.
• Use patterns/README.md after Loop Discovery proves the candidate and the result needs an operating composition or scenario-level example.
• Use learning-loop-patterns.md from longitudinal Learning Capture review when a bounded window needs pattern candidates or explicit no-finding coverage reasons.
• Use loop-spec-card.md after a proven loop candidate needs a compact spec, example, or report card shape.
• Use loop-primitives.md when a proven loop needs supporting primitives.
• Use automation-readiness.md after the decision is automation, schedule-ready, or scheduled/background follow-up.
• Use loop-state-ledger.md when a loop needs resumable, recurring, or cross-agent state.
• Continue to ../agent-customize/skill-discovery.md only after Loop Discovery selects Create Skill or Extend Skill.