loopbreaker: Instructions file for Codex

Loopbreaker agent guide

Loopbreaker is an agent-facing CLI and local MCP server. Keep machine output compact and stable. CLI stdout is TOON; diagnostics belong on stderr.

Before completing a change, run:

pnpm verify

This also verifies the seven plugin skills, both plugin manifests (Codex and Claude Code), the bundled MCP entry point, tool discovery, and one real MCP call. When the Codex skill/plugin validators are installed, also run their validators against each skills/* directory and the repository root.

For the live demo, initialize a disposable database and exercise both surfaces:

loopbreaker demo --db /tmp/loopbreaker-demo.db
loopbreaker substrate DEMO-1 --db /tmp/loopbreaker-demo.db
loopbreaker serve --db /tmp/loopbreaker-demo.db

The domain rules are non-negotiable:

• A shape cannot reach proceed without a founder-approved discovery record. Discovery is the first ordered authority; the premise must come from a human.
• Behavior children are enforced by default unless explicitly advisory.
• An issue's behavior children freeze its acceptance contract.
• Implementation requires shape proceed, healthy planning, and independent planning-review approval in that order.
• Planning review and implementation review each use at most three passes: comprehensive, repair verification, and decision only. Neither has pass four.
• Three passes is a budget, not a verdict on the work. An implementation review that spends all three without passing ends that ROUND, not the issue: the open findings are the work list, and loopbreaker review-round opens a new round that starts again at pass one. The loop stays broken because opening a round is a human act — it needs a name and a reason, it is refused while the current round still has a pass left, and every round is on the record. What is refused is a fourth pass grafted onto a review that already concluded, or a silent ship past findings nobody repaired.
• Review completion and shipping readiness are separate facts.
• Shipping requires every enforced behavior to be verified or explicitly waived.
• Evidence is executed, never asserted. An enforced behavior can only be verified on a proof loopbreaker ran itself (loopbreaker prove), whose verdict comes from the harness exit code. not_run is the fail-closed default: failing to observe a pass is never the same as passing.
• A behavior's harness is bound in two directions. The behavior names a registry entry (loopbreaker bind, outside the contract freeze) and the entry names the behavior back in its proves list (a reviewed change to harnesses.json). Neither half alone is sufficient.
• Build a behavior's harness and prove it RED against current HEAD before implementing. A harness that is green before the work exists proves nothing.