Loop Engineering for Hermes Agent

Stop prompting. Start looping.

Loop engineering replaces you as the person who manually prompts AI coding agents. Instead, you design autonomous loops that orchestrate agents — reading state, deciding actions, verifying results, and iterating until goals are met.

Inspired by Addy Osmani, Boris Cherny (Claude Code), and Peter Steinberger.

├── README.md                    # This file — full docs + install
├── GLOSSARY.md                  # Architecture, primitives, all patterns
├── scripts/
│   ├── install.sh               # One-command deploy into ~/.hermes/
│   └── run-loop.sh              # Shell orchestrator for terminal loops
├── patterns/
│   ├── daily-triage.md          # L1 report-only: observe and summarise
│   ├── adversarial-audit.md     # L2: builder + verifier, adversarial pair
│   ├── pr-babysitter.md         # L2: watch PRs, rebase, CI, ping
│   ├── dependency-sweeper.md    # L2: scan deps, safe patches, verify
│   ├── post-merge-cleanup.md    # L1–L2: TODOs, deprecations, tech debt
│   ├── maker-checker.md         # Core primitive: implementer + verifier split
│   └── early-exit.md            # Core primitive: no-op guard to save tokens
├── state-templates/
│   ├── deterministic.json       # Template: simple test-pass loop
│   ├── adversarial.json         # Template: builder + verifier scoring
│   ├── self-critique.json       # Template: same model, phase 2 critique
│   ├── post-merge.json          # Template: merge-scan state
│   └── dependency-sweep.json    # Template: dep scan state
├── skills/
│   └── loop-engineering/
│       ├── SKILL.md             # Hermes-loadable meta-skill
│       └── templates/
│           ├── deterministic.yaml
│           ├── adversarial.yaml
│           └── self-critique.yaml
└── loops/
    ├── templates/               # Same YAML templates (for direct cron use)
    └── state/                   # Active state files (auto-populated by install)

Quick Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ctahok/LoopEngineering/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

Or clone manually:

git clone https://github.com/ctahok/LoopEngineering.git ~/LoopEngineering
cd ~/LoopEngineering
bash scripts/install.sh

3 Core Loop Patterns

Pattern	Builder	Verifier	Use Case
Deterministic	Any	test-suite / exit-code	Health checks, smoke tests
Adversarial	Model A	Model B (different family)	Code review, UI audit, quality gate
Self-Critique	Same model, 2 phases	Same model, phase 2	Iteration for budget-constrained loops

Primitives (Reusable Building Blocks)

Primitive	Purpose
Maker/Checker	Implementer + verifier sub-agents, never same model for both
Early-Exit	No-op detection — exit in ~3k tokens when nothing changed
Worktree Isolation	Git worktrees for safe parallel fix attempts
L1→L2→L3 Rollout	Report → Assisted → Autonomous, never skip a level
State-Driven	JSON state files persist across sessions and crashes

Requirements

• Hermes Agent v0.15+ (with delegate_task and cron support)
• At least one LLM provider configured (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Gemini, etc.)
• For adversarial patterns: two different providers (different model families)

How Loops Work

Every loop follows this cycle:

1. CHECK STATE     → Read ~/.hermes/loops/state/<name>.json
2. DECIDE          → Is there work to do? If no → EARLY EXIT
3. ACT             → Sub-agent(s) run tools, write files, make changes
4. VERIFY          → Separate verifier checks output quality
5. RESOLVE         → Pass → update state, complete. Fail → iterate.

Wiring Your First Loop

# 1. Pick a pattern, copy its state template
cp ~/.hermes/loops/state-templates/adversarial.json ~/.hermes/loops/state/my-audit.json

# 2. Edit the target field in the JSON
vim ~/.hermes/loops/state/my-audit.json
# Set "target": "/path/to/your/project"

# 3. Create a cron job in Hermes
hermes cron create "*/15 * * * *" \
  --name "my-audit" \
  --skills loop-engineering \
  --prompt "Run the adversarial loop 'my-audit'. State at ~/.hermes/loops/state/my-audit.json"