loopify

/loopify — Set up an agent loop

Wizard for going from "this task should run periodically" to a working loop with the right pacing, idempotency, and bail-out. Reference: ScheduleWakeup (dynamic pacing), CronCreate (fixed schedule), and the built-in /loop (dynamic self-paced re-entry).

Step 0 — Confirm what you're looping

Ask if not obvious from context: "What task should this loop do each iteration?"

Then get the essentials:

Question	Why it matters
How often?	Determines cron vs dynamic vs one-shot
When to stop?	Bail-out condition — loops must have one
What's the loop body doing?	Determines idempotency requirements
Where does output go?	File / notification / commit / nothing
What's the failure mode if it runs twice?	Idempotency validation

Step 1 — Pick the pattern

Three primary patterns. Route by the answer to "how often":

Pattern A — Cron (fixed schedule)

Use when: task runs at predictable intervals — daily at 8am, weekly on Fridays, hourly on the hour.

Tool: CronCreate — schedules a recurring task with a cron expression.

CronCreate({
  schedule: "0 8 * * *",           // daily at 8am local
  prompt: "<loop body prompt>",
  timezone: "America/Los_Angeles"
})

Common cron patterns:

• 0 8 * * * — daily at 8am
• 0 9 * * 1 — Mondays at 9am
• 0 9 * * 5 — Fridays at 9am
• 0 */2 * * * — every 2 hours
• */15 * * * * — every 15 minutes

Trade-offs:

• ✅ Predictable, human-readable, easy to reason about
• ✅ Best for time-of-day-dependent tasks (morning brief, EOD summary)
• ❌ Runs at the scheduled time even if the last run isn't done — need idempotent body
• ❌ No self-pacing — over-schedules if the task duration varies wildly

Pattern B — Dynamic pacing (self-scheduled)

Use when: task should react to state, not the clock. Monitor-until-condition-met patterns. Waiting on an external event.

Tool: ScheduleWakeup — the current run schedules its own next wake-up.