Loops — find, install, run & build recurring agents

This skill, or find-loops?

• loops (this one) — AUTHOR or MODIFY a LOOP.md: the portable agenticloops.dev format (a trigger + skills + a prompt in one file any harness can install and run on a schedule). Fires on "create a loop", "make an agentic loop", "write a LOOP.md", "turn this into a recurring agent", "edit this loop".
• find-loops — SEARCH the directory and INSTALL a loop that already exists. Fires on "find a loop for X", "is there a loop that…", "install a recurring agent that does X".

Always search the directory first and install an existing loop when one fits; author a new LOOP.md only when nothing does.

For an ad-hoc in-session multi-agent run (spawn, verify, panel, fan-out) use the 5dive-cli-extras skill; for authoring a reusable SKILL.md use skill-creator.

The full lifecycle for agentic loops — the LOOP.md format behind agenticloops.dev.

An agentic loop is an installable, recurring AI agent defined in one file: a trigger, a set of skills, and a prompt. One file defines it; any harness (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, GitHub Actions, a 5dive runtime) can install and run it on a schedule.

This one skill covers the whole lifecycle — the loop-level analogue of find-skills and skill-creator in one:

1. Find an existing loop in the directory
2. Install / run it on your harness
3. Author a new LOOP.md when nothing fits

Always try 1–2 before 3. Search the directory and install an existing loop when one fits; only build a new one when nothing does. The authoritative format is spec v0.1 at github.com/5dive-ai/loops; when a field is ambiguous, defer to the spec.

The CLI for the whole flow is npx agenticloops (find · install · run · list · update). On a 5dive runtime, the native path is 5dive loop find|show|install.

Part A — Find & install an existing loop

Do this first whenever the user wants a recurring agent for a job.

A1. Understand the job

Identify the job (competitive intel, PR triage, security scan, news digest), the cadence (hourly, daily, on an event), and whether it's a single-agent job or a pipeline (gather → draft → publish = a multi-agent loop).

A2. Search the directory

npx agenticloops find <query>        # searches agenticloops.dev

Examples: "watch our competitors" → find competitive intel; "triage new PRs" → find pr triage; "daily security scan" → find security. Or browse agenticloops.dev directly (ci-analyst, intel-brief, autonomous-pr-loop, agentic-security-scanner, daily-news-radar, issue-triage-bot, …).

A3. Vet before recommending

A loop runs unattended on a schedule, so vet it harder than a skill:

1. Proof, not popularity. The directory ranks on verifiable, signed run receipts, not stars — prefer a loop that emits receipts (proof it actually did the job).
2. Read the requires block — the trust surface: exactly which cli binaries, secrets (names), mcp servers, and network egress the loop touches, before it runs. Confirm the user is comfortable with all of it.
3. Source reputation — official 5dive-ai/loops entries over an unknown author.
4. Can the harness honor the trigger? A loop needs scheduling — a run-only harness (an IDE) can run it once but can't fire it on time. Target a scheduler (5dive, GitHub Actions, cron); the installer warns otherwise.

A4. Install (and test-run first)

npx agenticloops install <owner/loop> --dry-run    # validate + pre-flight, change nothing
npx agenticloops run <owner/loop> --harness=<id>    # optional: one live run to see it work
npx agenticloops install <owner/loop> --yes         # register the recurring job
# native on a 5dive box:
5dive loop install <slug> --onto=<agent> [--cron="…"]

--harness auto-detects. Supply any requires.secrets host-side at install (the installer prompts) — secrets are names in the file, never values. Manage installed loops with npx agenticloops list and npx agenticloops update [<slug>].

If nothing in the directory fits → go to Part B and author one.

Part B — Author a new loop

B1. Capture intent

A loop is a recurring job, so pin down four things (mine the conversation first):

1. The job — what one unit of work does this agent do each run? (one sentence; it becomes the prompt)
2. The trigger — a schedule (every 4h, daily @ 07:00, weekdays @ 09:00, or raw cron) or an event (task-done, pr-opened, push). One is required.
3. The skills — capabilities it leans on (e.g. deep-research, compile-knowledge). Optional but common.
4. The environment — any CLI binary, secret, MCP server, or network egress? These go in requires for install-time pre-flight.

If the job is a pipeline (gather → draft → publish), it's a multi-agent loop — see the agents: template below.

B2. Write the LOOP.md

A loop is a directory whose name is the loop id, containing one LOOP.md. Frontmatter = manifest; body = starter prompt.

---
name: ci-analyst                 # kebab-case, ≤64 chars, matches the folder name
description: >                    # what it does + when to use it (drives discovery)
  Competitive-intel analyst — watches every competitor and the field, catches
  what changed, and writes a digest before it matters.
schedule: every 4h               # or: event: pr-opened  (one trigger is REQUIRED)
skills:                          # owner/repo/skill is explicit & recommended
  - 5dive-ai/skills/deep-research
  - 5dive-ai/skills/compile-knowledge
requires:                        # what must ALREADY be true in the env (declare-and-check)
  cli: [gh]                      #   binaries on PATH
  secrets: [X_API_TOKEN]         #   env-var NAMES only — never values
  mcp: [github]                  #   optional MCP servers
  network: [api.x.com]           #   optional egress allowlist
tier: frontier                   # capability hint: frontier | standard | fast (NEVER a vendor model)
effort: high                     # reasoning budget: high | medium | low
concurrency: skip                # overlap policy: skip | queue | replace | allow
timeout: 30m                     # per-run wall-clock cap (optional)
budget: 200k                     # per-run spend cap: tokens (200k) or cost ($2.00) (optional)
tags: [research, market-intel]
license: MIT
---

Scan our competitor set and the field for the last interval — launches, pricing,
funding, notable chatter. Update the watchlist and, once a day, write a concise
sourced briefing of what changed and what it means for us, then post it to the team.

Only name, description, and a trigger (schedule or event) are required. Start minimal; add fields as the job needs them.

Multi-agent (pipeline) template — an ordered agents: chain replaces the single body. Roles run strictly in array order; each role's structured output is injected at {{previous_output}} in the next:

---
name: intel-brief
description: Competitive-intel pipeline — a researcher gathers what changed, a writer turns it into a sourced briefing.
schedule: every 4h
tier: frontier
effort: high
agents:
  - role: researcher             # kebab id, unique in the loop
    skills: [deep-research, compile-knowledge]   # per-role, additive to top-level skills
    prompt: |
      Scan our competitor set and the field for the last interval. Return a
      structured list of what changed, with sources. No prose, just findings.
  - role: writer
    skills: [copywriting]
    prompt: |
      From the findings below, write a concise sourced briefing of what changed
      and what it means for us, then post it to the team.
      Findings:
      {{previous_output}}
tags: [research, multi-agent]
license: MIT
---

Triggers, requires, tier, effort, concurrency, timeout, budget, and tags stay top-level — they govern the whole run, not one role.

B3. Validate

There's no standalone validate command — validation is folded into install and run. Use a dry-run install to check the manifest against spec v0.1 and pre-flight requires without registering anything:

npx agenticloops install ./ci-analyst --dry-run --no-telemetry

A ✓ <name> line means the manifest parsed. Fix any schema errors; unknown fields are warnings, not errors. A missing secret/CLI shows up as a pre-flight ✗ — that's the check working, not a bad manifest.

B4. Test-run once, now

npx agenticloops run ./ci-analyst --harness=claude-code
npx agenticloops run ./ci-analyst --harness=claude-code --budget='$0.50'   # hard cap via `claude --max-budget-usd`

--harness auto-detects. Iterate on the prompt/skills until the single run does the job.

B5. Publish

Publishing = pushing a conforming public repo, no curation step:

1. Put the LOOP.md in a public GitHub repo (the folder name is the loop id).
2. Add the GitHub topic agenticloops.
3. The crawler finds it, validates it, and indexes it. Others install with npx agenticloops install <owner/repo>.

Ranking is proof, not popularity — loops that emit verifiable signed run receipts outrank ones that just have stars.

Golden rules (the ones that trip people up)

• Model-agnostic: tier, never a vendor model. Write tier: frontier | standard | fast; the harness maps it to its own lineup. Naming opus/gpt-5 in a LOOP.md breaks portability. A specific model is a host-side install override (--model=opus), never in the file.
• Secrets are NAMES, never values. secrets: [X_API_TOKEN] declares that the loop needs a token; the value is supplied host-side at install and never enters the file or repo.
• requires is declare-and-check, not an installer. It lists what must already be true; the installer pre-flights and prompts for what's missing. Only skills are ever fetched.
• A trigger is required. schedule or event. And it needs a scheduler — an IDE-only harness can run the agent but can't honor a recurring trigger.
• Multi-agent handoff is structured, not chat. Each role passes a defined artifact to {{previous_output}}, never transcript scraping — that's what makes an unattended run deterministic anywhere.
• Prefer explicit skill paths. owner/repo/skill is unambiguous; a bare name resolves against a default registry and can collide.

Communicating with the user

Loop users range from engineers to first-time terminal users. Match their level: explain "cron", "MCP", or "egress" briefly if there's any doubt, and lead with the plain-language job ("a bot that emails you a competitor digest every morning") before the YAML. Default to find-first — most people want a job done, not a file authored; reach for Part B only when the directory has nothing that fits.