x9-loop-engineering

Loop engineering

Design loops as bounded decision systems, not repeated prompts.

Qualify the loop

Build a loop only when the work recurs, its state can live in durable artifacts, and coordination or repeated verification is a meaningful part of the cost. If the task is one-off, state is only conversational, or human judgment dominates the work, recommend a bounded delegation or linear workflow instead of adding loop machinery.

Qualify the topology

Default to the smallest topology that can satisfy the contract:

• one agent when one context, toolset, and authority boundary are sufficient;
• a linear workflow when order matters but no branching or independent ownership is needed;
• a static graph when work has stable parallel branches, specialist ownership, joins, or independent gates;
• a dynamic graph only when evidence discovered at runtime can legitimately create, cancel, merge, or reorder work.

Add a node only when it provides distinct context, tools, authority, evidence, or parallel capacity. Do not create agents merely to simulate job titles, add agreeable reviewers, or make the workflow look multi-agent.

Invariants

Every production loop needs:

• an explicit outcome, decision contract, and authority for each load-bearing decision;
• the smallest sufficient topology, with a demonstrated responsibility for every added stage or node;
• a boundary contract and receiving-side acceptance check for every handoff that can change downstream work;
• explicit ownership for every shared state field and contended resource that exists;
• durable state sufficient to resume without reconstructing hidden context when work must survive interruption;
• an observable completion condition plus a bounded non-convergence condition;
• evidence proportional to the consequence, independent when self-certification would be unsafe;
• a human gate before irreversible or externally consequential actions unless standing authority explicitly covers them;
• an honest terminal status such as COMPLETE, DEGRADED, NOT_PROVEN, or BLOCKED.