autonomous-setup

When invoked:

1. Decide if autonomous actually fits. Many tasks the user thinks need unattended execution actually want interactive-with-attach. Ask: "Will a human need to make judgment calls during the run?" If yes, interactive + --attach-listen is usually better than fully autonomous.
2. Define the goal crisply. Autonomous runs follow goals strictly. Ambiguous goals produce either over-eager action or paralysis. Walk the user through:
   • What outcome they want (the success criterion)
   • What "done" looks like (the termination condition)
   • What constitutes an anomaly worth alerting about (vs noise to suppress)
3. Pick single-agent OR multi-agent shape. Heuristic:
   • Single agent — one focused task, one tool surface, one budget envelope. Most monitors fit here. Use references/single-agent-monitor.md.
   • Multi-agent — several specialists with different scopes, parent dispatcher coordinating. Use when concerns genuinely separate (infra vs apps, multi-tenancy, multi-cloud). Use references/multi-agent-decomposition.md.
4. Bound the run. Set the four budget caps with values the user is comfortable with. Tighter than they think they need; can always raise. Use references/budgets-and-recovery.md for the patterns.
5. Write the AGENTS.md with unattended discipline. Autonomous AGENTS.md is more explicit than interactive — crisp success criterion, explicit don't-do list, bounded tool surface. Walk through:
   • Role + scope
   • When to alert (specific triggers)
   • When to report_done (the termination signal)
   • What NOT to do (the don't-do list is load-bearing without an operator in the loop)
6. Set headless permission posture. Default to --ask=auto + an allow list for expected calls. Use references/single-agent-monitor.md for the patterns.
7. Wire durable sessions. --session-db is non-negotiable for autonomous runs — without it, a process crash loses the run; with it, ResumeAutonomous picks up cleanly.
8. Write the Go driver. Autonomous mode runs from a small Go program calling agent.RunAutonomous. Generate it for the user; show what it does.
9. Test the run end-to-end before deployment. Don't deploy unattended without a successful local test that exercises the actual workflow.

Triggers in detail

Beyond the description's verbatim list, also match on:

• "How do I keep core-agent running overnight"
• "Set up a cron-like agent"
• "Deploy core-agent to GKE / Kubernetes / a server"
• "Build a fleet of agents"
• "Multi-agent setup like the GKE team example"
• "How do I make the agent retry on failure"
• "Bound the cost of an unattended run"

References

Fetch the relevant reference based on the user's path:

• references/single-agent-monitor.md — single-agent monitor pattern: one focused goal, one tool surface, scheduled wakes, alert flow. Read for ~80% of autonomous setups. Includes a complete worked example (watch a Kubernetes deployment).
• references/multi-agent-decomposition.md — multi-agent shape: when to split into parent + specialists, spawn/dispatch patterns, scope separation via tool surface, escalation flow. Read when the user is describing a multi-tenant or multi-domain workload that naturally decomposes.
• references/budgets-and-recovery.md — budget caps (turns, tokens, cost, wallclock), per-turn timeout, failure policy, crash-resume via ResumeAutonomous, audit-log queries. Read when sizing budgets or when the user is worried about runaway cost.

Procedure: define the goal

The single biggest predictor of an autonomous agent working well is the crispness of its goal. Walk the user through articulating:

Watch [SUBJECT] for [DURATION]. Every [CADENCE], check [SPECIFIC THINGS].
Alert when [SPECIFIC TRIGGER CONDITIONS]. Stay silent otherwise.
At [TERMINATION CONDITION], call report_done with a summary.

Bad goal: "monitor the production environment."

Good goal: "Watch deployment myapp in namespace prod for the next 4 hours. Every 5 minutes, fetch its rollout status, pod conditions, and recent events. Alert when any pod is in CrashLoopBackOff or ImagePullBackOff for > 2 minutes, when ready replicas < desired for > 2 minutes, or when SLO error budget burn rate > 2x normal. Stay silent when everything is healthy. At the 4-hour mark, call report_done with a one-paragraph summary."

Help the user iterate to the second form before writing any code.

Procedure: budgets

Always set all four:

agent.WithMaxWallclock(4*time.Hour),  // upper bound on run duration
agent.WithMaxTurns(100),               // upper bound on Run invocations
agent.WithMaxCost(2.00),               // upper bound on $ spend
agent.WithPerTurnTimeout(2*time.Minute), // single rogue turn can't stall

Start tight. The user can raise if the run hits the cap legitimately. The reverse — finding out the unattended agent burned $100 overnight — is much worse.

For multi-agent setups, set budgets per-agent. The parent's budget is "manage the team for N hours"; each child's budget is "do your specific job within bounds." Don't share one budget across the whole team.

Procedure: AGENTS.md for unattended use

Mandatory sections:

You are <ROLE> for <SUBJECT>.

## Your job

<one paragraph stating what success looks like>

## When to alert

<specific trigger conditions — each one explicit>

## When to report_done

<specific termination condition>

## What NOT to do

- <anti-pattern 1, named specifically>
- <anti-pattern 2>
- <anti-pattern 3>

## Tool surface

<which tools the agent should/shouldn't use, and why>

The "What NOT to do" list is especially important. With no operator in the loop, the cost of an unintended action is high. Be aggressive: "Don't propose remediations. Don't run kubectl describe repeatedly. Don't post status updates when healthy."

Procedure: permission posture

Two patterns:

Pattern A (recommended for most monitors): --ask=auto + allowlist.

core-agent --ask=auto ... # runtime flag

{
  "permissions": {
    "mode": "allow",
    "allow": [
      "bash:kubectl get *",
      "bash:kubectl rollout status *",
      "bash:kubectl logs *"
    ]
  }
}

The ask_user tool is registered but cleanly refuses with "no user available" when there's no TTY. The agent adapts. The allow patterns cover expected calls; anything outside hits the refusal.

Pattern B (fully-locked surfaces): mode=yolo + tight tools.disable + path_scope.

{
  "permissions": { "mode": "yolo" },
  "tools": { "disable": ["write_file", "edit_file", "delete_file"] }
}

Skip the gate entirely. The bash denylist + path_scope still apply. Use only when the tool surface is known-safe.

Procedure: durable sessions

core-agent --session-db --session-db-path=/var/lib/myagent/sessions.db

Or in the Go driver, pass agent.WithSessionService(...) constructing an eventlog-backed service. Without durable sessions, a crashed process loses the run. With them, ResumeAutonomous(ctx, sessionID, ...) picks up cleanly.

For multi-agent runs, each subagent gets its own session — durable storage applies to all of them via the same DB.

Procedure: the Go driver

package main

import (
    "context"
    "log"
    "os/signal"
    "syscall"
    "time"

    "github.com/go-steer/core-agent/v3/pkg/agent"
    "github.com/go-steer/core-agent/v3/pkg/models"
    _ "github.com/go-steer/core-agent/v3/pkg/models/gemini"
)

func main() {
    ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(),
        syscall.SIGINT, syscall.SIGTERM)
    defer stop()

    provider, err := models.Resolve(nil)
    if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
    model, err := provider.Model(ctx, "gemini-3.7-flash")
    if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }

    goal := `<the crisp goal from step 2>`

    res, err := agent.RunAutonomous(ctx, model, goal,
        agent.WithMaxWallclock(4*time.Hour),
        agent.WithMaxTurns(100),
        agent.WithMaxCost(2.00),
        agent.WithPerTurnTimeout(2*time.Minute),
    )
    if err != nil { log.Fatal(err) }
    log.Printf("stop: %s (turns=%d, cost=$%.4f)",
        res.StopReason, res.Turns, res.CostUSD)
}

Walk the user through customizing each piece. The basic shape is stable; what changes is the goal, the budgets, the provider/model pick, and (for multi-agent) the spawn-tool wiring.

When NOT to use this skill

• The user is configuring core-agent for interactive use. Use the cli-setup skill.
• The user is embedding core-agent in a non-autonomous library context (e.g., HTTP-served single-turn agents). Use the library-embedding skill.
• The user wants a one-shot run (-p "...") not an unattended monitor. That's just CLI use; no autonomous machinery needed.
• The user has an existing autonomous agent and asks a specific failure question. Diagnose first; only walk the configuration runbook if the failure traces to misconfiguration.

Output style

Conversational, sequential. Don't dump all 9 steps up front — that's overwhelming. Walk one decision at a time: confirm the goal shape before talking about budgets; confirm budgets before discussing AGENTS.md; etc.

When generating code (the Go driver), explain what each block does before writing. The user is going to run this unattended; they need to understand it well enough to trust it.

For multi-agent setups, do one agent at a time. Configure platform (or whatever the parent is), then one child, then another. Each child is a recursive call into this skill's procedure — same shape, narrower scope.