/ar:loop — Autonomous Experiment Loop

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

Usage

/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:

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):

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:

Total experiments so far:

Step 4: Store loop metadata

Write to

.autoresearch/{domain}/{name}/loop.json

:

{

"cron_id"

:

"{id from CronCreate}"

,

"interval"

:

"{user selection}"

,

"started"

:

"{ISO timestamp}"

,

"experiment"

:

"{domain}/{name}"

}

Step 5: Confirm to user

Loop started for {domain}/{name}

Interval:

Cron 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

:

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} ).