Design loops for coding agents, not just prompts

ClaudeDevs describes agent loops as repeated cycles of work with explicit triggers, stop conditions, primitives, and task fit — from normal turn-based agent loops to goal-based, time-based, and proactive workflows. Why it matters: Agent reliability depends on operating design, not just prompt quality. Good loops define when work starts, when it must stop, how success is verified, which model should handle each step, and how failures improve the system instead of becoming one-off fixes.

Try this: Before automating a recurring coding task, write a loop spec: trigger, stop condition, max turns or schedule, verification gate, model choice, and escalation path. Start with one narrow loop such as PR review follow-up or CI failure triage, then measure cost, latency, and false positives before expanding.