# Weekly Enhancement Loop

> Weekly cross-repo self-improvement loop. Every Monday 02:00 AEST it applies the 8-Claude-Loops method (INGEST / BUILD / COMPOUND + North Star) across every repo in config/harness/projects.json, opening review PRs so all projects compound over time. Cost-optimised open-weight ladder (Qwen/DeepSeek) via OpenRouter — cheap grunt tiers, one reserved reasoner for the planner handoff (~$5/full run).

- Skill: `cleanexpo/weekly-enhancement-loop` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cleanexpo/weekly-enhancement-loop`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cleanexpo/weekly-enhancement-loop/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Marketing & Growth
- Author: cleanexpo (https://skillmd.com/u/cleanexpo)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cleanexpo/weekly-enhancement-loop

---


# Weekly Enhancement Loop

Automates the improve-system method from
`docs/sources/8-claude-loops-to-build-10x-faster.md` (Austin Marchese, "8 Claude
Loops to Build 10x Faster") as one scheduled cross-repo pass. The source buckets
loops into **INGEST → BUILD → COMPOUND**, plus a **North Star** compass. This
skill is the automation of loops 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 run every Monday 02:00 AEST
against every repo in `config/harness/projects.json`, so every project is enhanced on a
fixed cadence rather than only when someone opens a session.

Runner: `scripts/weekly_enhancement_loop.py`. Schedule:
`.github/workflows/weekly-enhancement-loop.yml` (always-on) and
`scripts/launchd/com.piceo.weekly-enhancement-loop.plist` (local Mac fallback).

## Skill-driven loop creation

The source's rule: every loop starts as a skill you run manually and confirm,
then you wrap it in a schedule. This file is that skill. Run it by hand once per
repo before trusting the cron:

```bash
python scripts/weekly_enhancement_loop.py --repo CleanExpo/RestoreAssist --dry-run
```

Only enable the schedule after a dry-run produces a sane review file.

## The loop (per repo)

For each repo in the registry the runner executes the improve-system loop:

1. **Ingest (loops 1–3).** Clone the repo into an isolated `/tmp` workspace
   (never the outer checkout), read the codebase, recent sessions, `WIKI.md`,
   and open Linear items. Surface recurring patterns and gaps — internal alpha,
   not a report. A **Haiku** monitor pass does the cheap scan/enumeration.

2. **Plan (loop 5 approval gate).** An **Opus** planner/orchestrator turns the
   findings into a bounded implementation plan (affected files, sequencing,
   risk, rollback). The plan is the critical-call checkpoint — if the direction
   is wrong here, every later step is wasted.

3. **Build + optimise (loops 4–5).** A **Sonnet** generator applies small,
   verifiable edits. Optimisation targets are objective and measurable (build
   time, bundle size, lint/type errors, dead code, dependency drift). Measure →
   change → re-measure until the metric moves or the iteration/cost cap trips.

4. **Review (loop 5).** A **Sonnet** evaluator reviews the diff for correctness,
   scope, security, and operability before anything leaves the sandbox.

5. **Three-bucket triage (loop 6).** Every proposed change is logged to
   `CHANGELOG` in the repo and bucketed:
   - **auto-approve** — low-risk (formatting, dead-code removal, obvious dep
     bumps, doc fixes): committed to the branch automatically.
   - **need-sign-off** — skill/config/structural/security-touching changes:
     written to the review file as a checkbox list; **never merged by the loop**.
   - **more-context** — the loop cannot decide alone: written to the same review
     file for the operator.

6. **North Star check (loop 8).** Before opening the PR, the Opus orchestrator
   checks the batch against the repo's charter/goals and drops anything that
   does not point at the actual North Star. Drift is surfaced, not shipped.

7. **Ecosystem log (loop 7).** Every run appends a structured result to
   `.harness/enhancement-loop/<date>.jsonl` (repo, models, metrics before/after,
   buckets, branch, PR, cost). This is the run-log that lets the loop monitor
   itself and lets tokens/cost be audited week over week.

## Hard boundaries (do not weaken)

- **Approval gate, not auto-merge.** The loop pushes an `enhance/weekly-<date>`
  branch and opens a PR per repo. It **never merges to `main`**. Monday-morning
  human review is the sign-off. This is loop 5's critical-call checkpoint.
- **Self-modification guard.** Enhancement of `CleanExpo/Pi-Dev-Ops` is allowed
  but the branch/PR must be reviewed by a human — the webhook autonomy poller
  already skips `pidev/` refs, so this loop must not push refs that re-trigger
  it (RA-1182: 43 zombie branches).
- **Isolation.** Work only in `/tmp/pi-ceo-enhance/<repo>`, outside any parent
  git repo, so git never pushes to the wrong remote (RA-1169).
- **Kill-switch.** Honour `TAO_HARD_STOP_FILE`, `TAO_MAX_ITERS`, and
  `TAO_MAX_COST_USD` — same three abort axes as every other TAO loop (RA-1966).
- **Model policy (founder directive 2026-07-05, supersedes the RA-1099 mapping
  for this loop).** Cheap open-weight models do all grunt work (scan, build,
  review); one stronger open-weight reasoner is reserved for the planner handoff —
  the single critical-call checkpoint. **No premium Anthropic model is used**, so
  RA-1099's spirit ("never burn a premium model on scan/build") is honoured
  absolutely. RA-1099 still binds the TAO **session** engine
  (`model_policy.py` / `config.py`); it does not bind this standalone runner.

## Model ladder — OpenRouter open-weight (founder directive 2026-07-05)

Fable-5 left the Max plan on 2026-07-08 **and** the direct Anthropic org has no
API credit, so this loop bills **OpenRouter** credit. The founder directed a
cost-optimised open-weight ladder: the premium Anthropic ladder cost ~$8/repo
(Opus planner alone was ~$4.55); the open-weight ladder projects ~$0.4/repo, so
the full 10-repo run drops from ~$79 to ~$5. OpenRouter's `/v1/messages` endpoint
routes open-weight models through the **native Anthropic tool-use / `usage.cost`
schema** (verified 2026-07-05), so `scripts/weekly_enhancement_loop.py` stays a
self-contained tool-use agent (read_file / write_file / list_dir / run_bash,
scoped to the clone) — no Claude Code CLI, no code change to the agent loop.

`OPENROUTER_API_KEY` must be set (GitHub Actions secret for the always-on path;
`~/.config/piceo/enhancement.env` for the launchd path). Slugs:

| Role | Tier | OpenRouter slug | $/Mtok (in/out) | Env override |
|------|------|-----------------|-----------------|--------------|
| planner (handoff / decision) | reasoner | `deepseek/deepseek-v4-pro` | 0.435 / 0.87 | `ENHANCE_MODEL_HANDOFF` |
| generator (build) | grunt | `qwen/qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct` | 0.07 / 0.27 | `ENHANCE_MODEL_BUILD` |
| evaluator (review) | grunt | `deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash` | 0.09 / 0.28 | `ENHANCE_MODEL_REVIEW` |
| monitor (scan) | grunt | `qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507` | 0.09 / 0.10 | `ENHANCE_MODEL_SCAN` |

Open-weight slugs are founder-registry-sanctioned (Qwen/DeepSeek — see the model
registry memory). Override via env when newer builds ship — do not hard-code new
pins in code. Spend is tracked from OpenRouter `usage.cost` and drains at
`TAO_MAX_COST_USD` (now `15.00`); `ENHANCE_MAX_PHASE_ITERS` caps tool-use rounds
per phase.

## Verification

- [ ] Dry-run against one repo produces a review file with the three buckets.
- [ ] No branch is merged; each repo yields at most one open PR per week.
- [ ] `.harness/enhancement-loop/<date>.jsonl` has one line per repo touched.
- [ ] No premium Anthropic model appears in the run-log; grunt tiers are
      open-weight and only the planner uses the reserved reasoner.
- [ ] Kill-switch file drains the loop mid-run.