agentic-loop

Agentic loop

The developer's attention is the scarce resource, and this loop spends it at the specification rather than during execution. They approve what is to be built; the work is then written, verified, and judged by a reviewer in a fresh context, and they hear from you once.

Reach for it when the goal is well enough understood to specify. When the developer needs to hold the change in their head as it happens, this is the wrong tool — it deliberately takes that away.

Invariant: one scheduled interruption. The front gate below is the only planned stop. After it, the loop reports when it is done — or halts and reports when it cannot proceed without guessing.

Invariant: this skill never writes code. It gates and hands off. Implementation belongs to implementer, judgement to reviewer, sequencing to orchestrator.

1. Front gate

Everything this task produces lives in one run directory: {{WORK_DIR}}/<goal-slug>/. Nothing about the task is written anywhere else, and no other task writes into it — one directory the developer can open, read in order, and delete when the task is done.

Slugify the goal and look for that directory first. It already exists with a spec → this is a resume: read the spec and progress.md, and continue from the first slice that has not landed. Do not re-derive what the record already holds.

Otherwise, produce two things in this conversation, together:

• A spec with numbered clauses — each one a single checkable statement about behaviour after the change. Clauses are what the reviewer renders a verdict against, so a clause nobody can check is a clause nobody will enforce. If a spec-writing skill is installed, invoke it and number the criteria it produces; otherwise draft the spec here.
• An ordered slice list — each slice independently verifiable, and each naming the clauses it satisfies.

Ask about anything you would otherwise guess at, and resolve it before the gate. Every clause of the spec is a thing three agents will act on unattended; an ambiguity that survives this gate is one they will resolve without the developer.