Goal Loop

Goal Loop

Drives a phased objective to completion with the /goal plugin. /goal is a single-condition autonomous loop — it has no stages, no sub-tasks, no pacing. This skill layers multi-stage Ralph discipline on top of it: a Goal Ladder climbed one rung at a time, each rung a self-contained /goal condition, the ladder itself on disk.

/goal — the primitive (read first)

Everything here is shaped by what /goal actually is:

• /goal <condition> sets one goal — a measurable end-state, ≤4000 chars. /goal shows status; /goal clear clears.
• After every turn a fast model (Haiku) reads the transcript and answers yes/no on the condition. "No" → its reason becomes guidance, another turn fires. "Yes" → the goal auto-clears, marked achieved.
• One goal per session. No sub-tasks, no milestones, no pacing control, no ScheduleWakeup. The session grows turn by turn.
• State is in-session. --resume restores the active condition but resets counters; achieved/cleared goals are not restored. The plugin writes no repo files.

Consequences this skill is built around:

1. Multi-stage ⇒ a ladder of goals, one rung per phase.
2. "What's next" must live on disk — /goal has no memory of it.
3. The evaluator only sees the transcript ⇒ every rung condition must embed its own machine-checkable verification.
4. The evaluator is binary ⇒ escalation degrades to a turn-limit backstop unless an outer /loop orchestrates (see Sequencing).

When to use

Trigger when the user asks to "drive a goal", "goal ladder", "ralph with /goal", "run the goal loop", or hands you a multi-phase brief to run via /goal.

Skip if:

• One-shot work — just do it.
• The user wants ScheduleWakeup-paced discrete ticks → use plan-loop.
• A rung's /goal is already running — don't re-enter; let it iterate.

Two paths

Path A — Ladder exists (GOAL-LADDER.md present)

Jump to Climbing the ladder.

Path B — No ladder; user stated an objective

Bootstrap one. See Bootstrapping a ladder.

File set

<plan-dir>/
├── GOAL-LADDER.md   ← ordered rungs; each rung = a ready-to-paste
│                       /goal condition + status. Source of truth.
├── GOAL-LOOP.md     ← contract / hard rules / escalation / skills
├── GOAL-STATE.md    ← active rung, base SHA, history, escalations
└── git log          ← immutable audit (commits prefixed per rung)

Templates live in templates/ next to this skill. Put the dir wherever the project keeps plans (e.g. docs/plans/ if committed, or a gitignored scratch dir). The rung conditions are durable, useful documentation — prefer committing the ladder.

Bootstrapping a ladder

1. Break the objective into phases — each phase is one rung, sized so its /goal finishes in one focused session (tens of turns, a handful of commits).
2. For each phase author a rung condition (see next section).
3. Write GOAL-LADDER.md (rungs, all status: todo), GOAL-LOOP.md (contract), GOAL-STATE.md (STATUS: NOT STARTED).
4. Surface the ladder to the human for approval before climbing.

Authoring a rung condition — the make-or-break detail

The Haiku evaluator only sees the transcript. A rung condition that says "Phase 1 is done" is unverifiable and the loop never terminates. Every rung condition MUST contain:

• Branch + plan reference — where work happens, what spec to follow.
• An explicit acceptance list — ALL hold: (a) … (b) …, each clause objectively checkable.
• Embedded verification — a command + expected exit, a file existence/content check, or a git log message match. Quote them so the evaluator can confirm them from the transcript.
• Constraints — paths Claude must not touch, gates that must stay green, "no secrets", "≤5 files per commit".
• A turn limit — Stop after N turns if not achieved. This is the escalation backstop.

Keep it under 4000 chars; ~600–1200 is typical. Anchor completion to a git log match (feat(<id>-pN):) so "is the rung done" is a one-liner the evaluator can trust.

Climbing the ladder

One phase = one rung = one /goal = one session. Running each rung in its own session keeps context fresh and restartable — the Ralph property. The ladder on disk sequences them.

Per-rung contract (inside a rung's /goal run)

1. Turn 1 — read GOAL-LOOP.md + GOAL-STATE.md; record the rung base SHA (git rev-parse HEAD) in GOAL-STATE.md; restate the acceptance list.
2. Guard — branch ≠ main/trunk, working tree sane.
3. Implement toward the condition. ≤5 files per commit.
4. Gates after each change — lint / compile / types / tests, stop on first failure (see GOAL-LOOP.md for the project's commands).
5. Self-review — /simplify the diff before each commit.
6. Commit feat(<id>-pN): <verb> <one-line> and push.
7. When every acceptance clause holds, write the rung result to GOAL-STATE.md. The evaluator catches the "Yes" and auto-clears.
8. Blocker — on a genuine escalation trigger, write STATUS: BLOCKED + reason to GOAL-STATE.md and stop changing code; the turn limit ends the goal unachieved.

Sequencing — two modes

The orchestrated mode is the true "Ralph across stages": /loop + ScheduleWakeup sequence the rungs; /goal is the rung engine, each rung in its own claude -p subprocess. The orchestrating session uses /loop and must not itself call /goal — one goal per session.

Cross-rung contract (orchestrated mode, per /loop tick)

1. Read GOAL-LADDER.md; pick the first rung not done. None → go to Termination.
2. Inspect the active rung:
   • Not started → record base SHA in GOAL-STATE.md, launch claude -p "/goal <rung condition>" as a background task, ScheduleWakeup(1500).
   • Running → ScheduleWakeup(1500), stop.
   • Exited → verify: gates green + a feat(<id>-pN): commit since base SHA ⇒ mark rung done, ScheduleWakeup(60) to pick the next. Turn-limit hit or STATUS: BLOCKED ⇒ escalate.
3. Stop the iteration — next tick re-reads disk.

Escalation triggers

Surface and stop — do not "decide and proceed":

• A genuine architecture choice not pre-decided in the plan.
• A gate fails on trunk/main (pre-existing breakage).
• A rung needs a new dependency, or a running environment it can't get.
• A security finding (leaked secret, vulnerable dep).
• A contradiction between plan files, or a gate behaving off-spec.
• A rung hits its turn limit unachieved.

On escalation: STATUS: BLOCKED + reason + recommended next step in GOAL-STATE.md; in orchestrated mode PushNotification (one line, <200 chars) and omit ScheduleWakeup; do not /goal clear.

Restartability

/goal state is in-session and fragile. GOAL-LADDER.md + GOAL-STATE.md on disk are the durable source of truth — a rung is always re-derivable from them. If a rung session dies, re-run its /goal from GOAL-LADDER.md; the per-rung contract's base-SHA + idempotent gates make a partial rung safe to resume.

Skills to use

Never call /land-and-deploy, /canary, or anything that merges or deploys — that is human work.

Termination

When every rung is done:

1. /review the full branch diff.
2. /ship — open the PR (draft → ready as appropriate).
3. PushNotification the outcome with the PR link (<200 chars).
4. Orchestrated mode: omit ScheduleWakeup; TaskStop any monitors.

When a rung is blocked: STATUS: BLOCKED in GOAL-STATE.md, PushNotification, stop. No PR.

Quick start

# 1. Bootstrap (if no ladder): author GOAL-LADDER.md / GOAL-LOOP.md /
#    GOAL-STATE.md from templates/. Get human approval.

# 2. Climb — human-paced:
/goal <paste rung R0 condition from GOAL-LADDER.md>
#    …review the commit, then paste R1, etc.

# 2'. Climb — orchestrated:
/loop drive the goal ladder per <plan-dir>/GOAL-LOOP.md — read
  GOAL-LADDER.md, run the first todo rung as `claude -p "/goal …"`,
  follow the cross-rung contract, ScheduleWakeup the next tick. Stop
  (omit ScheduleWakeup) on any escalation or when all rungs are done.