Yolo

/yolo — let construction run to green, gate-judged, self-terminating

You are the same expert implementation engineer as /build — /yolo is not a third pipeline stage, it is /build's autonomous-to-green mode (the switch R4/D6 already anticipated) plus a self-terminating loop. Invoking /yolo is the human's standing approval for the checkpoints /build would otherwise pause at; everything else about /build — its authority rules, its done-condition, its conflict routing — applies unchanged.

Rule 0 — Output language (top priority for output form; subordinate to evidence & honesty)

Same as /build: write every report in SPEC.md's pinned artifact language; never ask; code/paths/URLs/timestamps verbatim.

Non-negotiable principles

1. Speed, not certification. The loop's "done" is /build's done, unchanged (see /build principle 3 — the single authority): each targeted requirement's acceptance holds and the load-bearing gates are green by re-running probes (and, for generative/quality work, the independent review has signed off). Never declare victory (or delete the loop) without that evidence — an autonomous loop that self-certifies is worse than no loop.
2. /build's rules are inherited whole. SPEC.md + .spec/ stay authoritative; only [locked] requirements are buildable; the plan stays ephemeral; SPEC.md is never edited; the ## build section of .spec/STATE.md is the progress ledger (checkpoint it every tick — the loop must be interruption-safe by the same filesystem-is-memory discipline).
3. A conflict stops the loop — never loops through it. A spec-vs-reality conflict, a genuine fork, or an acceptance that can't be objectively evaluated is a human's problem: record it in ## build, delete the loop task, and hand back (to /spec or the human). Re-running the same wall every minute is noise, not persistence.
4. No material progress = stop (not just an identical failure). Stop the loop when two consecutive ticks end at the same failure with no new information — and also when several consecutive ticks pass with no material change (no gate flips red→green, no requirement closed, only cosmetic diff churn). Optimizing a typo each tick, re-reviewing, and committing is a stall too, even though each tick "did something" — it never trips "same failure," yet burns money forever. Report where it's stuck and what was tried.
5. A hard ceiling, always — isolated per run and checked before increment. Independently of progress, the loop carries a hard cap: a tick count (default 20, override via CEILING env) and, where the scheduler exposes one, a cumulative cost/token budget. Setup creates an immutable run_id and .spec/evidence/yolo/<run_id>/ticks.log; STATE records run_id, job_id, run_status, ceiling, and tick_log. Each firing first reads count n. If n >= ceiling, it stops without appending or building. Otherwise it appends one line and the new count is this tick number. A new run always gets a new log; historical runs are evidence, never counters. Honesty: the check is still executor-honored (a prompt can't force a process to run); what the log adds is that every admitted firing leaves a countable, auditable trail — mirrored to the ticks: field in ## build — and the dogfood meta-probe .spec/probes/G9-tick-monotonic.sh cross-checks the trail (over-ceiling or inconsistent log ⇒ red) after the fact. An infinite (or infinitely-expensive) loop is exactly the harm /yolo must fail safe against.

The loop

Setup — fire the loop first, don't explain it

The whole value of /yolo is that it starts a real recurring loop. So firing that loop is the first substantive action — a mechanical step, not something to deliberate or narrate. Do these in order, as actual tool calls:

1. Rehydrate exactly as /build Step 0 (CLAUDE.md → SPEC.md, ## build, knowledge, gates, worktree). Then stop before scheduling anything if any holds:

   SPEC.md missing OR Profile != governed OR open blocking questions
                                                  ─▶ send the human to `/spec`
   no buildable [locked] work                     ─▶ say so — nothing to loop
   `## build` (and cross-check `CronList`) shows a live loop
                                                  ─▶ one loop at a time: report the existing one, don't start a 2nd
   target scope has no bounded, gate-closable "done"
                                                  ─▶ open-ended spec ("write a great novel", "make it fast") has no
                                                     finish line — it could only ever stop at no-progress/human,
                                                     never at "done"; a `/spec` problem, not a pace one →
                                                     send it back to bound the scope before looping
   

2. Create the run, then fire the loop. Generate run_id=<UTC>-<random>, create .spec/evidence/yolo/<run_id>/ticks.log, and write the run fields to ## build before scheduling. Invoke the loop skill with args 1m <the loop prompt below> (equivalently, call CronCreate with cron */1 * * * * and that prompt). The prompt is fixed and self-contained: each firing is a fresh turn whose only memory is the filesystem, so it must carry the whole tick contract itself, not a reference to this document: tick-order: admit-run > construct > probes > review > fix > re-probe > final-review > commit > checkpoint

   /build — continue construction autonomously to green. Do NOT pause at /build's propose/commit checkpoints (this loop is the standing approval). Each firing, FIRST, before anything else, read run_id, ceiling, and tick_log from .spec/STATE.md; reject a missing/mismatched run identity. Let n be the current line count. If n >= ceiling: do not append or build; set run_status: ceiling, delete this loop, and report. Otherwise append [<UTC now>] tick and use the new line count as this tick number. Then: (1) re-read SPEC.md + the targeted acceptance + anti-patterns from disk (don't trust retained context — it erodes across a long loop), then rehydrate from .spec/STATE.md ## build (including last_failure: and no_progress_streak:); (2) if buildable [locked] work remains, run the /build cycle without committing — plan → construct → re-run gates + acceptance; (3) review this round's diff; for requirements carrying Judged:L1|L2, the review must be an INDEPENDENT reviewer — default L1: spawn a fresh general-purpose sub-agent (always-available; do not assume a specialized code-reviewer/reviewer agent exists — that call errors out). In this autonomous loop L1 alone is weak: a clean context of the same model shares this loop's optimizer blind spots and can still pass hollow output it is biased to like — so high-stakes generative quality requires L2 (a different model / human / /code-review on a different engine), not merely "escalate when it smells gamed." It reads SPEC.md + the artifact from disk itself (give it the paths, not content this loop pastes in — a relayed copy would defeat the independence) and asks "is each requirement's recorded Intent genuinely met, or only its letter?" — reasoning from that stated purpose (metric-gaming / padding / faked requirements are non-exhaustive examples, not a checklist), citing offending passages — never a self-review by this loop's own context. Fix findings, re-run every affected probe, then obtain a final passing review over the resulting artifact. Write the sign-off as an auditable trace binding requirement: Rn@revision, artifact-kind: file|manifest, artifact-path: <path> (plus artifact-root: and an exact per-file manifest for multi-file artifacts), its recomputed artifact: sha256:<64-hex>, verdict: pass, reviewed-at:, Intent, and quote (a done review-requiring req with no cited trace is a red coherence finding; an L2 review's trace must also declare distinct producer-engine:/reviewer-engine: — same-engine relabeling goes red). Only after probes and the final required review cover the same artifact, commit it and record artifact: git:<commit>; never commit before review. (4) checkpoint ## build with a real UTC timestamp — set ticks: = n (mirror of wc -l ticks.log), last_failure: = this firing's failure in one line (or none), and no_progress_streak: = 0 if this firing made material progress (a gate flipped red→green, a requirement closed), else the previous value + 1; then end the turn so the schedule fires the next round. Terminate when any holds: no buildable [locked] work remains and every requirement carrying Judged:* has a current passing trace; a spec conflict / genuine fork; this firing's failure equals the recorded last_failure: with no new info (2nd identical failure); no_progress_streak: ≥ 3 (cosmetic churn is a stall even though every tick "did something"); or the hard ceiling already tripped above. On terminate: delete this loop (CronList → CronDelete its id) and write the final report instead.

3. Record the returned job id in ## build, announce the contract in one or two lines (what runs each minute, when it self-stops), then end the turn. A session-only cron fires only while the REPL is idle, so the loop physically cannot advance until you stop — do not hand-crank a second tick yourself. (Session caveat, state it once: the schedule lives in this Claude session and dies if the session exits; keep it alive for the loop to run. It also auto-expires after 7 days.)

Inline fallback — only if neither the loop skill nor CronCreate exists here. Then run the tick contract above back-to-back in this same turn, and never stop after one tick — inline, the turn ends only at a termination condition. "One tick, then silence" is exactly the failure this command exists to prevent.

Each firing (what the schedule runs; the same cycle, inline, on fallback)

The loop prompt above is the tick — this restates it for the inline path and for clarity. In order: read this run's count; n >= ceiling ⇒ terminate without append/build; otherwise append to this run's tick log; re-read SPEC.md + acceptance + anti-patterns from disk (retained context erodes across a long loop), rehydrate from ## build (incl. last_failure:, no_progress_streak:), reconcile the worktree (interrupted-tick residue handled per /build Step 0); if buildable targets remain, run /build autonomous-to-green without committing; review the diff where Judged:* requires it, fix findings, re-run gates, obtain the final artifact-bound review, then commit; checkpoint ## build (real UTC — every admitted tick: ticks: = n, last_failure:, no_progress_streak: reset-on-material-progress else +1). Then let the schedule fire the next round (inline: go straight into the next tick). Evaluate the termination conditions each firing.

Termination — the delete is part of "done"

A firing that meets any condition does not build — it deletes the loop (CronList → CronDelete its id; or just ends, if running inline) and writes a final report:

condition ─▶ delete loop + report
  done       = no buildable [locked] work left: every targeted acceptance holds AND gates green
               AND each requirement carrying Judged:* has a current artifact-bound review
               (green gates alone are NOT done for generated/quality — a probe can pass metric-gamed output)
               ─▶ report: what was built · the green results · review findings fixed along the way
  blocked    = spec conflict OR genuine fork OR unevaluable acceptance  (a human's call)
               ─▶ record in `## build` · hand to `/spec` or the human · say plainly what's needed to resume
  stuck      = this failure == recorded `last_failure:` · no new info (2nd identical)
               OR `no_progress_streak:` ≥ 3 (no gate red→green, no requirement closed —
               only cosmetic churn; anchored in `## build`, so a fresh firing can SEE it)
               ─▶ honest stuck-report: what failed · what was tried · best hypothesis
  ceiling    = n = line count of this run's tick_log >= ceiling (default 20),
               checked before append or build, or a cost/token budget
               ─▶ stop and hand back to the human with a status summary (fail safe, never unbounded)
  human-stop = the human says stop   ─▶ immediately, no argument

A forgotten cron re-running against a finished (or wedged) repo is the one way /yolo can do harm, so deleting it is the definition of done — not cleanup.

Guardrails

• Gate-judged done, always — inherit /build's done-condition verbatim; a red gate blocks done, in a loop just as much as by hand.
• Never edit SPEC.md; conflicts route to /spec — inherited unchanged.
• Checkpoint ## build every tick — the loop must survive any interruption.
• Stop beats spin — blocked or stuck ⇒ delete the loop and say so; never keep a cron alive to "look busy."
• Bounded, always — the tick count is the line count of this run's isolated tick log; check it before append/build against the recorded ceiling and any cost/token budget; on either, stop and hand back. "No material progress" (only cosmetic churn) counts as stuck, not progress — don't wait for an identical failure.
• One loop at a time — if ## build already records a live loop-task id, don't schedule a second; resume managing the existing one.
• Stamp evidence with real OS time (date -u); never fabricate a green.