Agent Loops

A field manual for autonomous agent loops, written the way a good appliance manual is written. It names the six parts of a loop — heartbeat, sandbox, recipe, maker-checker, hands, spine — walks the cycle, and lists the six ways loops fail.

It exists because most explanations of agents are either hand-wavy or buried in code. A manual sits in between: concrete enough to build from, plain enough to hand to someone new.

What to take from it: a failure list is a feature. Telling the reader the six ways the thing breaks is more trustworthy, and more useful, than only showing the happy path.