# Livelock Recovery

> Use when activity is high but requirements, blockers, tests, and deliverables remain unchanged across repeated edit, search, test, review, or planning cycles.

- Skill: `ihabkhaled/livelock-recovery` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add ihabkhaled/livelock-recovery`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/ihabkhaled/livelock-recovery/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: ihabkhaled (https://skillmd.com/u/ihabkhaled)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/ihabkhaled/livelock-recovery

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# Livelock Recovery

## Core principle

Stop repeated activity, identify the unchanged outcome, change strategy materially, and reduce the search space.

## Procedure

1. Freeze the repeating action.
2. Compare recent actions semantically.
3. Name the outcome that did not change.
4. Remove speculative branches and invalid assumptions.
5. Choose a new hypothesis, evidence source, isolation, or layer.
6. Reduce scope, retry once, then escalate or block if still unchanged.

## Required output

Repeated cycle, unchanged metric, new strategy, reduced scope, and retry result.

## Limits

Reset after 4 stalled cycles or 3 same-strategy attempts.

## Common mistakes

Do not make recovery generate more hypotheses or perform a fourth equivalent attempt.

## Stop condition

Stop when measurable progress resumes or an exact blocker is proven.