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agent-development-loop

agent-development-loop

Runs a continuous improvement cycle — consult memory, complete the next TODO, test and build, harvest learnings back to memory, then research the competition. Use when maintaining a codebase over many agent sessions, when institutional knowledge keeps getting lost between sessions, or when progress needs a repeatable flywheel.

Category
Category: loop-engineering
  • dev-loop
  • memory
  • todo
  • harvest
  • continuous-improvement
  • flywheel

Install this skill

npx . --tool claude-code --only agent-development-loop

Run from a git checkout of this repo — see the README for details.

When to apply

Use when an agent (or human) maintains a project across many sessions and needs progress to compound instead of restarting from zero each time. The loop lives in AGENTS.md; its memory lives in MEMORY.md; its backlog lives in TODO.md.

The cycle

  1. Consult memory first — Search MEMORY.md for the task's keywords before starting. Reuse proven patterns; respect documented anti-patterns. If nothing relevant exists, note the gap.
  2. Pick one TODO item — Highest priority first; minimal, focused change; no speculative features. If the backlog is empty, run a competitive-intelligence pass to seed it.
  3. Test and build — Run the full verification chain (typecheck → tests → build). A feature that isn't verified doesn't exist.
  4. Harvest — Write what worked, what failed, and why into MEMORY.md with file/line references and dates. Check the harvest quality list: success patterns, anti-patterns, project gotchas, searchability.
  5. Audit periodically — After each batch: leanness (dead code, unused deps), budgets (bundle size, performance), consistency (design tokens, conventions), docs alignment (drift is a bug).
  6. Research the ecosystem — Study competitors, note capabilities they have that this project lacks, add the valuable ones to TODO.md.
  7. Loop — Back to step 1.

The two files that make it work

  • MEMORY.md is both entrance and exit: consult it before work, harvest into it after. Knowledge that isn't written down dies with the session.
  • TODO.md is the queue: finished work is marked done in the same session that finished it. An honest backlog beats a hopeful one.

Example MEMORY.md entry

### Prerender parity (2026-08-30)
- Client and SSR must import the same route components (lazy vs static)
  or hydration mismatches occur. See src/routes.tsx vs src/entry-server.tsx.
- Symptom: blank page in production, works in dev. Check dist/ HTML for
  the expected content — if missing, the SSR render failed silently.

Example TODO.md entry

- [ ] Lazy-load skill bodies (bundle budget fix): import.meta.glob eager
      bundles all 23 skill bodies into the initial chunk. Fix: non-eager
      glob + async getSkillBySlug. Brings initial bundle under 105KB gz.

Rules

  • Never skip step 1 to "save time" — that trade always costs more later.
  • Harvest even from failures, especially from failures.
  • Keep entries dated and searchable; stale memory is worse than none when it's trusted blindly.
  • Docs are code: when implementation changes, the docs change in the same commit.

Related skills

  • loop-budget — Bounds what a single loop cycle may spend.
  • loop-triage — Decides what enters the TODO queue.