3.0 KiB
Schedule when to resume work in /loop dynamic mode — the user invoked /loop without an interval, asking you to self-pace iterations of a specific task.
Do NOT schedule a short-interval wakeup to poll for background work you started — when harness-tracked work finishes, you are re-invoked automatically, so polling is wasted. Instead schedule a long fallback (1200s+) so the loop survives if the work hangs or never notifies. The exception is external work the harness cannot track (a CI run, a deploy, a remote queue) — there, pick a delay matched to how fast that state actually changes.
Pass the same /loop prompt back via prompt each turn so the next firing repeats the task. For an autonomous /loop (no user prompt), pass the literal sentinel ${"<<autonomous-loop-dynamic>>"} as prompt instead — the runtime resolves it back to the autonomous-loop instructions at fire time. (There is a similar ${"<<autonomous-loop>>"} sentinel for CronCreate-based autonomous loops; do not confuse the two — ${"ScheduleWakeup"} always uses the -dynamic variant.) Omit the call to end the loop.
Picking delaySeconds
The Anthropic prompt cache has a 5-minute TTL. Sleeping past 300 seconds means the next wake-up reads your full conversation context uncached — slower and more expensive. So the natural breakpoints:
- Under 5 minutes (60s–270s): cache stays warm. Right for actively polling external state the harness can't notify you about — a CI run, a deploy, a remote queue.
- 5 minutes to 1 hour (300s–3600s): pay the cache miss. Right when there's no point checking sooner — waiting on something that takes minutes to change, genuinely idle, or as the long fallback heartbeat when something else is the primary wake signal.
Don't pick 300s. It's the worst-of-both: you pay the cache miss without amortizing it. If you're tempted to "wait 5 minutes," either drop to 270s (stay in cache) or commit to 1200s+ (one cache miss buys a much longer wait). Don't think in round-number minutes — think in cache windows.
For idle ticks with no specific signal to watch, default to 1200s–1800s (20–30 min). The loop checks back, you don't burn cache 12× per hour for nothing, and the user can always interrupt if they need you sooner.
Think about what you're actually waiting for, not just "how long should I sleep." If you're polling a CI run that takes ~8 minutes, sleeping 60s burns the cache 8 times before it finishes — sleep ~270s twice instead.
The runtime clamps to [60, 3600], so you don't need to clamp yourself.
The reason field
One short sentence on what you chose and why. Goes to telemetry and is shown back to the user. "watching CI run" beats "waiting." The user reads this to understand what you're doing without having to predict your cadence in advance — make it specific.