/ar:loop — Autonomous Experiment Loop

⚠️ AUTHORIZED USE ONLY This skill is for educational purposes or authorized security assessments only. You must have explicit, written permission from the system owner before using this tool. Misuse of this tool is illegal and strictly prohibited.

Start a recurring experiment loop that runs at a user-selected interval.

Usage

code

/ar:loop engineering/api-speed             # Start loop (prompts for interval)
/ar:loop engineering/api-speed 10m         # Every 10 minutes
/ar:loop engineering/api-speed 1h          # Every hour
/ar:loop engineering/api-speed daily       # Daily at ~9am
/ar:loop engineering/api-speed weekly      # Weekly on Monday ~9am
/ar:loop engineering/api-speed monthly     # Monthly on 1st ~9am
/ar:loop stop engineering/api-speed        # Stop an active loop

What It Does

Step 1: Resolve experiment

If no experiment specified, list experiments and let user pick.

Step 2: Select interval

If interval not provided as argument, present options:

code

Select loop interval:
  1. Every 10 minutes  (rapid — stay and watch)
  2. Every hour         (background — check back later)
  3. Daily at ~9am      (overnight experiments)
  4. Weekly on Monday   (long-running experiments)
  5. Monthly on 1st     (slow experiments)

Map to cron expressions:

Interval	Cron Expression	Shorthand
10 minutes	`/10 * * *`	`10m`
1 hour	`7 * * * *`	`1h`
Daily	`57 8 * * *`	`daily`
Weekly	`57 8 * * 1`	`weekly`
Monthly	`57 8 1 * *`	`monthly`

Step 3: Create the recurring job

Use CronCreate with this prompt (fill in the experiment details):

code

You are running autoresearch experiment "{domain}/{name}".

1. Read .autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/config.cfg for: target, evaluate_cmd, metric, metric_direction
2. Read .autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/program.md for strategy and constraints
3. Read .autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/results.tsv for experiment history
4. Run: git checkout autoresearch/{domain}/{name}

Then do exactly ONE iteration:
- Review results.tsv: what worked, what failed, what hasn't been tried
- Edit the target file with ONE change (strategy escalation based on run count)
- Commit: git add {target} && git commit -m "experiment: {description}"
- Evaluate: python {skill_path}/scripts/run_experiment.py --experiment {domain}/{name} --single
- Read the output (KEEP/DISCARD/CRASH)

Rules:
- ONE change per experiment
- NEVER modify the evaluator
- If 5 consecutive crashes in results.tsv, delete this cron job (CronDelete) and alert
- After every 10 experiments, update Strategy section of program.md

Current best metric: {read from results.tsv or "no baseline yet"}
Total experiments so far: {count from results.tsv}

Step 4: Store loop metadata

Write to .autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/loop.json:

json

{
  "cron_id": "{id from CronCreate}",
  "interval": "{user selection}",
  "started": "{ISO timestamp}",
  "experiment": "{domain}/{name}"
}

Step 5: Confirm to user

code

Loop started for {domain}/{name}
  Interval: {interval description}
  Cron ID: {id}
  Auto-expires: 3 days (CronCreate limit)

  To check progress: /ar:status
  To stop the loop:  /ar:loop stop {domain}/{name}

  Note: Recurring jobs auto-expire after 3 days.
  Run /ar:loop again to restart after expiry.

Stopping a Loop

When user runs /ar:loop stop {experiment}:

•Read .autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/loop.json to get the cron ID
•Call CronDelete with that ID
•Delete loop.json
•Confirm: "Loop stopped for {experiment}. {n} experiments completed."

Important Limitations

•3-day auto-expiry: CronCreate jobs expire after 3 days. For longer experiments, the user must re-run /ar:loop to restart. Results persist — the new loop picks up where the old one left off.
•One loop per experiment: Don't start multiple loops for the same experiment.
•Concurrent experiments: Multiple experiments can loop simultaneously ONLY if they're on different git branches (which they are by default — each experiment gets autoresearch/{domain}/{name}).

When to Use

•Use this skill when you need for functional programming or specific domain tasks.