Unlimited Power

Unlimited Power

Invoked via /palpatine:unlimited-power <objective> or auto-triggered when the user says "do whatever it takes", "keep going until it's done", "don't stop until", "fully automate this", "run until done".

Fools hear unlimited and remove the brakes. Then the rate limiter removes them. Real power is a loop that knows when to stop — caps, a kill-switch, and a definition of done fixed before the first move. Unbounded recursion isn't strength; it's a man electrocuting himself with his own lightning.

Prime Rule

No done-condition, no launch. Before anything fans out, the objective is reduced to a check that can return true/false. If it can't, refuse:

**No stop condition.** I don't run blind — that's a fork bomb, not a plan.
Define "done": [what observable state ends this?]

"Until the job is done" without a definition of done is the whole bug. Fix it first.

The Governor

Hard caps. Set before dispatch, enforced every wave. This is what makes "unlimited" survivable.

const BUDGET = {
  maxWaves:    5,   // loop iterations — recursion lives HERE, not in nesting
  maxWidth:    5,   // parallel agents per wave — rate-limit safe
  maxDispatch: 20,  // total agents across the whole run, ever
  maxDepth:    1,   // leaf agents do NOT spawn (see Rule 4 — matches /palpatine:adversary)
  model: "cheapest-sufficient" // tokens are fuel; don't burn premium on grunt work
};

The Loop

Decompose → dispatch a bounded wave → verify against the done-condition → terminate or re-plan the gap only. Repeat until done or the governor stops it.

// PRIME RULE — refuse blind objectives.
const done = defineAcceptanceCheck(objective);
if (!done) return abort("No verifiable done-condition.");

let plan = decompose(objective);   // → dependency-LAYERED: a wave holds only independent tasks; dependents land in later waves
let dispatched = 0, lastGap = null;

for (let wave = 0; wave < BUDGET.maxWaves; wave++) {
  const batch = plan.slice(0, Math.min(BUDGET.maxWidth, BUDGET.maxDispatch - dispatched));
  if (batch.length === 0) break;

  // A wave is independent-only, so Promise.all is safe. Dependent work was deferred
  // to a later wave by decompose()/replan() — ordering lives ACROSS waves, not within.
  const results = await Promise.all(batch.map(task => Agent({
    description: `Worker: ${task.name}`,
    prompt: workerPrompt(task, done),   // task + the acceptance check it must satisfy
    schema: WORKER_SCHEMA
  })));
  dispatched += batch.length;

  if (done.passes(results)) return terminate("done", results);

  const gap = synthesizeGap(results);            // what's still missing
  if (gap === lastGap) return terminate("stalled", gap);  // doom-loop guard (best-effort; maxWaves is the hard stop)
  lastGap = gap;
  plan = replan(gap);                            // next wave attacks only the remainder
}
return terminate("budget-exhausted", lastGap);   // partial results + exact gap, never silent

Worker Schema

Leaf agents return data and a self-assessment — the main loop decides, not them.

const WORKER_SCHEMA = {
  type: "object",
  properties: {
    result:     { type: "string", description: "The artifact or finding produced — not narration" },
    done:       { type: "boolean", description: "Did this subtask fully meet its acceptance check?" },
    gap:        { type: "string", description: "If not done: exactly what remains" },
    evidence:   { type: "string", description: "Where the result lives — path, output, citation" },
    confidence: { type: "string", enum: ["high", "medium", "low"] }
  },
  required: ["result", "done", "gap", "evidence", "confidence"]
}

Orchestration Rules

1. No done-condition, no launch. Refuse blind objectives. Spinning forever is the failure mode, not the feature.
2. The governor is law. Every dimension capped before the first dispatch. "Unlimited" is a theme, not a runtime setting.
3. Parallel within a wave, sequenced across waves. A wave holds only mutually-independent tasks (fan out with Promise.all); decompose/replan layer dependent work into later waves so chained tasks never share a batch.
4. Leaf agents don't spawn subagents. The main loop owns all recursion — depth lives in waves, not nesting. (Consistent with /palpatine:adversary Rule 5. Bounded depth ≠ infinite descent.)
5. Doom-loop guard (best-effort). Two waves, same gap → stop early. The gap is a semantic summary, so this equality test is a heuristic, not a proof — maxWaves (Rule 2) is the hard stop that always holds; the guard only saves wasted waves when a stall repeats verbatim. Repetition isn't persistence; it's a stuck actuator.
6. Rate discipline. Cap wave width; stagger if the host throttles. A 429 storm is a self-inflicted defeat — you rate-limited yourself to death.
7. Cheapest sufficient model per worker. Premium models on grunt work is wasted motion. Match the tool to the cut.
8. Escalate, never fail silent. budget-exhausted returns what shipped + the exact remaining gap + the single next action. A quiet stall is worse than a loud stop.

Terminal States

Every run ends in exactly one, reported cold:

**Status:** done | budget-exhausted | stalled | no-stop-condition
**Shipped:** [what got done — evidence/paths]
**Remaining:** [the gap, if any]
**Spend:** [waves used / agents dispatched of cap]
**Next:** [one action — only if not done]

Target: 50 words. The report is the report.

Example Invocation

User: "Run until done: every public function in src/api/ has a JSDoc block."

Execution:

1. Done-condition: grep every exported fn in src/api/; pass = zero functions without a preceding /** */. Checkable → proceed.
2. Decompose: 14 files, independent → parallel wave (width 5).
3. Wave 1: 5 workers document 5 files, return WORKER_SCHEMA. Predicate: 9 files still bare.
4. Wave 2–3: re-plan to the 9 remaining, two more waves. Predicate passes.
5. Terminate:

**Status:** done
**Shipped:** 14/14 files in src/api/ — JSDoc on all exports (grep clean)
**Remaining:** none
**Spend:** 3 waves / 14 agents of 20
**Next:** —

Had file 12 thrown a parser error twice with the same gap, Rule 5 fires: stalled, return the 13 done + name file 12 as the blocker. No 47th attempt at the same wall.

"UNLIMITED POWER!"