Loop Engineering

Stop prompting. Design the loop. Get a score.

npx @cobusgreyling/loop init . --pattern daily-triage --tool claude
npx @cobusgreyling/loop doctor .

--tool defaults to claude if you omit it. Swap for grok, codex, or opencode. Week one is report-only.

You design a system that discovers work, hands it to agents, verifies results, and persists state — instead of typing the next prompt yourself.

New here? Quickstart · Refactor a project · Thin GitHub Action loop (no STATE.md required)

What do you want to do?

This is a pattern library for operating agents around a codebase. It is not a “rewrite the module” button.

I want to…	Start here
Keep the repo healthy (issues, CI, deps)	Quickstart → daily-triage
Land and babysit PRs	PR Babysitter
Run a loop in GitHub Actions with almost no files	Thin loop
Ship a feature or refactor (todos → small PRs)	Refactor / change path

Full jobs table: docs/jobs.md.

Patterns

Pattern	Cadence	Week 1	Cost
Daily Triage	1d–2h	L1 report	Low
Thin loop	event + 1d	L1 snapshot	Very low
PR Babysitter	5–15m	L1 watch	High
CI Sweeper	5–15m	L2 cautious	Very high
Dependency Sweeper	6h–1d	L2 patch-only	Medium
Changelog Drafter	1d or tag	L1 draft	Low
Post-Merge Cleanup	1d–6h	L1 off-peak	Low
Issue Triage	2h–1d	L1 propose-only	Low

Interactive picker: showcase. Index: patterns/registry.yaml.

Getting started

npx @cobusgreyling/loop init . --pattern daily-triage --tool claude
npx @cobusgreyling/loop doctor .
npx @cobusgreyling/loop cost --pattern daily-triage --level L1

Empty repo → first STATE.md walkthrough: scripts/empty-to-state-demo.sh.

Roll out L1 report → L2 assisted → L3 unattended only after the verifier has been right for a week. See loop-design-checklist.

Loop Ready now weights recent runs harder than files on disk. A 30-day-old STATE.md is not L3.

Examples by tool

Claude Code (including the plugin) · Grok · Codex · OpenClaw · Opencode · GitHub Actions

Operating & safety

Failure modes · Anti-patterns · Safety · Operating loops · Stories (wins and failures)

Loop engineering amplifies judgment. Token costs can explode. Unattended loops make unattended mistakes. Read what the loop ships.

Help wanted

Docs and small PRs: first response within 48 hours.

• Add your project to adopters
• Share a story (failures first-class)
• Live good first issue list
• Show your loop · Ask anything

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Unified front door: npx @cobusgreyling/loop (init · doctor · status · audit · cost). Older packages (loop-init, loop-audit, …) stay supported.

Companions exist for later: memory-engineering, harness-foundry, outerloop, fleet-engineering, goal-engineering. Do not add them until a loop has actually run.

Sources

• Cobus Greyling — Loop Engineering
• Addy Osmani — Loop Engineering
• Lulla et al. 2026 — Building Blocks, Adoption, and Impact (this repo is the community reference they reviewed)
• Attribution

License

MIT