Agent Loop

Skill access pattern (post-kernel-pivot, 2026.5+)

Skill names referenced in this document are AIWG skills, not slash commands. Most are not kernel-listed and cannot be invoked as /skill-name by the platform. Reach them via:

aiwg discover "<capability>"
aiwg show skill <name>

Only kernel-listed skills (aiwg-doctor, aiwg-refresh, aiwg-status, aiwg-help, use, steward) are directly invokable as slash commands. See skill-discovery rule.

Agent Loop Skill

You detect when users want iterative autonomous task execution and route to an internal, in-session loop by default. External daemon loops are opt-in and require an explicit request.

Loop Taxonomy

This skill is the detection and routing layer for autonomous agent loops — iterative patterns where a single agent retries a task against completion criteria until success or limits.

Generic loop requests route to the internal in-session loop. As new loop types are added, this skill will route based on task characteristics.

Routing Policy

Step 0: Provider Capability Check

Before choosing the loop mechanism, detect the active provider via aiwg runtime-info or the steward capability surface. The provider branch is internal to this skill; users invoke the same agent-loop / ralph names everywhere.

Native /goal mapping:

/goal "<task>; completion: <measurable criterion>"

When completion is omitted, run infer-completion-criteria first and include the inferred criterion in the goal text. AIWG remains responsible for any activity-log entries, issue comments, and human-authorization gates around the loop.

Research and decision record: .aiwg/research/codex-goal-integration.md, .aiwg/architecture/adr-codex-goal-routing.md. The Claude Code dialect is the same operator-facing form: /goal "<task>; completion: <criterion>".

External/orchestration routing (provider-native /workflow): .aiwg/research/provider-workflow-integration.md, .aiwg/architecture/adr-workflow-routing.md. Verified against codex-cli 0.135.0 (#1535): Codex has no core /workflow; Claude Code's Workflow tool is the in-session orchestration analog. Detached/cross-session work stays AIWG-native (ralph-external).

Default: Internal/In-Session Loop

Use the internal loop when the user says agent-loop, al, ralph, loop, iterate, keep trying, fix until green, address issues, handle all listed issues, or supplies an iteration bound such as --iterations 200 without explicit external wording.

Run the work visibly in the current assistant session:

1. Establish completion criteria.
2. Declare any loop controls required by task criticality: budget ceilings, eval/holdout split, and exploration quota.
3. Record a hypothesis, expected failure mode, and distinguishing diagnostic before each material change.
4. Act on the next bounded slice of work.
5. Verify with the relevant checks.
6. Adapt with structural variation after flat cycles, then continue until completion, blocker, budget stop, or the requested iteration cap.

For long-running, high-criticality, budgeted, adversarial, or eval-driven loops, AIWG treats mechanical evidence as load-bearing and self-report as secondary. Relevant controls:

• Budget stop: declared wall-clock/token/spend/tool ceilings stop the loop and require a best-output report.
• Dosed entropy: non-improving cycles cannot repeat the same tactic; every declared K cycles requires a structural variant or stop.
• Holdout isolation: hidden fixtures or answer keys produce aggregate-only feedback to the optimizer; detailed diagnostics stay in private audit logs.
• Experiment log: hypothesis, expected failure mode, diagnostic, result, and probe/generalization signal survive compaction.

Do not launch detached processes, background sessions, or the Ralph external daemon for generic loop requests.

Explicit External Route

Route to agent-loop-ext / ralph-external only when the user explicitly asks for external execution, background execution, a daemon, detached operation, crash resilience, session survival, resume-later behavior, unattended long-running work, or when they name agent-loop-ext, ralph-external, or the Ralph daemon directly.

If the user says ralph without external/background/daemon qualifiers, treat it as the internal loop concept.

Triggers

Alternate expressions and non-obvious activations (primary phrases are matched automatically from the skill description):

• "ralph this: [task]" → iterative loop with extracted task
• "ralph it" (after describing work in conversation) → loop using conversation context
• "keep trying until [condition]" → loop with completion condition
• "fix until green" → test-fixing loop shorthand
• "loop until [condition]" → condition-based iteration
• "al: [task]" → shortcut for agent-loop invocation

Trigger Patterns Reference

Extraction Logic

Task Extraction

From explicit task:

• "ralph this: fix all TypeScript errors" → Task: "fix all TypeScript errors"
• "ralph: migrate src/ to ESM" → Task: "migrate src/ to ESM"

From context:

• "ralph it" after discussing a refactor → Use previous conversation as task context

Completion Inference

When the user doesn't specify explicit verification, delegate to the infer-completion-criteria skill (@$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/skills/infer-completion-criteria/SKILL.md). That skill runs a deterministic 5-layer pipeline:

1. Task verb → criterion class (test-pass, type-clean, regression-gate, coverage, lint-clean, build-pass, implement-feature)
2. Project context files (CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / AIWG.md) → canonical commands from the Development section
3. Package manifests (package.json, Cargo.toml, pyproject.toml, go.mod, pom.xml, etc.) → discovered scripts
4. CI configuration (.github/workflows/, .gitea/workflows/, GitLab/CircleCI/Jenkins) → team's actual "passes" definition
5. .aiwg/ artifacts (test-strategy, related use cases by ID match, prior progress files) → project-specific gates

Synthesis is validated against the vague-discretion rule and emits a structured YAML proposal with criterion, verification command, rationale chain, confidence level, and alternatives considered.

Use the inline table below ONLY as a last-resort fallback when the inference skill is unavailable (degraded environment, missing skill deployment). It is intentionally narrow — JavaScript/Node-centric — and represents prior state before infer-completion-criteria was added.

Legacy fallback table:

When the inference skill IS available, prefer it. The skill handles multi-language projects, monorepos, CI-defined gates, use-case acceptance criteria, and the refusal case (truly vague tasks like "make it better" that have no measurable criterion).

Examples

User: "ralph this: migrate all files in lib/ to ESM" Extraction:

• Task: "migrate all files in lib/ to ESM"
• Completion (inferred): "node --experimental-vm-modules lib/index.js runs without errors"

Action: Run an internal loop in the current session for migrate all files in lib/ to ESM until the inferred completion command succeeds

User: "keep fixing until the tests are green" Extraction:

• Task: "fix failing tests" (from context or implied)
• Completion: "npm test passes with 0 failures"

Action: Run an internal loop in the current session until npm test passes

User: "ralph it" (after discussing adding auth validation) Extraction:

• Task: (from conversation context about auth validation)
• Completion: (infer based on task type)

Action: Run an internal loop in the current session using the context-based task and inferred criteria

User: "loop until coverage is above 80%" Extraction:

• Task: "add tests to improve coverage"
• Completion: "npm run coverage shows >80%"

Action: Run an internal loop in the current session until the coverage report shows more than 80%

User: "Run this in the background with crash recovery and let me attach later" Extraction:

• Task: (from conversation context)
• Completion: (infer based on task type)

Action: Route to agent-loop-ext / ralph-external because the user explicitly requested background crash-resilient execution

Clarification Prompts

If extraction is ambiguous, ask the user:

I'll start an iterative loop for: {extracted task}

What command verifies completion?
1. npm test (Recommended for test fixes)
2. npx tsc --noEmit (For type errors)
3. npm run lint (For lint errors)
4. npm run build (For build issues)
5. Custom command...

Or if task is unclear:

I detected an iterative loop request. To start iterating:

What task should I repeat until success?
What command tells me when it's done?

External/Multi-Loop Support

Version 2.0 added concurrent loop execution with registry tracking. This applies to explicit external daemon loops, not ordinary internal agent-loop requests.

Concurrency Limits

• MAX_CONCURRENT_LOOPS: 4 (per REF-086)
• Research basis: 17.2x error trap beyond 4 concurrent agents
• Communication overhead: n*(n-1)/2 paths = 6 at max capacity

Loop ID Format

All loops have unique identifiers:

• Pattern: ralph-{slug}-{uuid8}
• Example: ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4

--loop-id Parameter

Users can optionally specify a loop ID for external daemon loops:

/ralph "fix tests" --completion "npm test passes" --loop-id ralph-my-fixes-12345678

If not provided, ID is auto-generated from task description.

Registry Tracking

External active loops are tracked in .aiwg/ralph/registry.json:

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "max_concurrent_loops": 4,
  "active_loops": [
    {
      "loop_id": "ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4",
      "status": "running",
      "iteration": 5,
      "task": "fix all TypeScript errors",
      "started_at": "2026-02-02T21:00:00Z",
      "pid": 12345
    }
  ]
}

Concurrent Loop Behavior

When starting a new external loop:

1. Check registry: active_loops.length < 4
2. If at limit: Show error with active loop list
3. If space available: Register new loop and start

User sees:

Error: Maximum concurrent loops (4) reached

Active loops:
1. ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4 (iteration 5) - fix TypeScript errors
2. ralph-add-docs-b2c3d4e5 (iteration 3) - add JSDoc comments
3. ralph-refactor-c3d4e5f6 (iteration 8) - refactor API module
4. ralph-migrate-d4e5f6a7 (iteration 2) - migrate to ESM

Abort one with: aiwg ralph-abort {loop_id}

Loop Status Commands

Check all active loops:

aiwg ralph-status --all

Check specific loop:

aiwg ralph-status ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4

Abort a loop:

aiwg ralph-abort ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4

Resume a paused loop:

aiwg ralph-resume ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4

Directory Structure

Multi-loop structure per loop:

.aiwg/ralph/
├── registry.json                    # Multi-loop registry
└── loops/
    ├── ralph-fix-tests-a1b2c3d4/
    │   ├── state.json
    │   ├── checkpoints/
    │   │   ├── iteration-001.json.gz
    │   │   └── iteration-002.json.gz
    │   └── analytics/
    │       └── analytics.json
    └── ralph-add-docs-b2c3d4e5/
        ├── state.json
        └── ...

Invocation

Once task and completion are extracted/confirmed, use the default internal route unless explicit external wording is present.

For the default internal route:

• Task: The extracted task description
• Completion criteria: The verification command or condition
• Max iterations: If user mentioned iteration limit
• Timeout: If user mentioned time limit
• Operation: Iterate in the current assistant session with visible progress and verification after meaningful changes

For explicit external daemon routes:

• Task: The extracted task description
• Completion criteria: The verification command or condition
• Max iterations: If user mentioned iteration limit
• Timeout: If user mentioned time limit
• Loop ID: If user wants a custom loop identifier
• Operation: Route through agent-loop-ext / ralph-external, then surface status, log, attach, and abort commands

External Multi-Loop Examples

Parallel bug fixes:

User: "run an external ralph loop to fix TypeScript errors in src/"
→ Loop 1: ralph-fix-ts-errors-a1b2c3d4

User: "also run an external ralph loop to add missing tests in lib/"
→ Loop 2: ralph-add-tests-b2c3d4e5

Both running in parallel until completion criteria met.

Sequential with manual abort:

User: "run an external ralph loop to refactor the entire auth module"
→ Loop 1: ralph-refactor-auth-c3d4e5f6 (running)

User: "actually, abort that and just fix the login bug"
→ aiwg ralph-abort ralph-refactor-auth-c3d4e5f6
→ Loop 2: ralph-fix-login-d4e5f6a7 (running)

Integration Notes

• This skill has high priority - iterative loop phrases should route here
• The skill is exclusive - once triggered, handle the entire request
• Always confirm extraction before invoking if there's ambiguity
• Prefer inferring completion criteria over asking (ask only if truly unclear)
• Default ambiguous requests to the internal in-session loop
• Do not start ralph-external, detached daemons, or background aiwg ralph processes unless the user explicitly asks for them
• Check registry capacity before starting explicit external loops
• Show helpful errors with active loop list when explicit external loops are at capacity

Related

• infer-completion-criteria skill - derives measurable --completion from project state when the user doesn't supply one
• ralph skill - legacy name for the iterative loop concept; agent-loop is canonical and defaults to in-session execution
• agent-loop-ext skill - crash-resilient external loop with state persistence
• ralph-status skill - check loop progress
• ralph-resume skill - continue interrupted loops
• ralph-abort skill - abort active loops
• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/schemas/loop-registry.yaml - Registry schema
• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/schemas/loop-state.yaml - Loop state schema
• @.aiwg/research/findings/REF-086-cognitive-load-limits.md - Concurrency research

Version History

• 3.1.0: Defaulted generic agent-loop routing to internal in-session loops; require explicit wording for external daemon loops
• 3.0.0: Renamed from ralph-loop to agent-loop; added loop taxonomy (Issue #558)
• 2.0.0: Added multi-loop support with registry tracking (Issue #268)
• 1.0.0: Initial single-loop implementation

References

• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/README.md — Ralph addon overview and loop executor documentation
• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/schemas/loop-registry.yaml — Registry schema for multi-loop tracking
• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/agent-loop/schemas/loop-state.yaml — Loop state schema
• @$AIWG_ROOT/agentic/code/addons/aiwg-utils/rules/vague-discretion.md — Loop termination and completion criteria rules
• @$AIWG_ROOT/docs/cli-reference.md — CLI reference for ralph commands