claude-mods/skills/loop-ops/references/pattern-catalog.md

Pattern Catalog — a morphology of loop shapes

Loops aren't a fixed list of recipes — they're compositions of three orthogonal axes. Name the axes and the patterns fall out; you can also compose ones not named here. The named patterns below are the well-trodden points in this space. loop-scaffold seeds a loop.config.yaml keyed by --pattern <name> (the canonical keys); the rest of the space you compose by hand. Start every pattern at L1 and graduate only once its reports prove its judgment.

The three axes

1. Trigger — what starts a tick.

Trigger	Fires when	Mechanism	Best for
cadence	a clock interval elapses	/loop (supervised), Desktop task, cloud routine, or a daemon	steady polling — backlog, PRs, deps
event	an external thing happens (CI fail, error, deploy, message)	a Channel (MCP webhook receiver) pushes it into a live session	responsiveness + low cost — no idle polling
goal	runs continuously until a condition holds, then stops	/goal (+ auto mode)	run-to-completion — migrations, metric targets

Event beats poll when you can get it. A CI webhook firing the tick is cheaper and faster than a 10-min poll. The cost: a Channel needs a persistent session (claude --channels … in a background process), and it's a research-preview, Anthropic-auth-only feature. Cadence stays fully detached; event trades that for responsiveness. See claude-code-loops.md.

2. Posture — how much autonomy (the risk tier): L1 report · L2 propose-and-human-gates · L3 autonomous-in-a-denylist.

3. Locus — where it runs / what it can touch.

Locus	Mechanism	Can touch	Use when
connector	cloud routine (/schedule)	your claude.ai connectors (email, Asana, Slack, issues) — no local files	the work lives in services, not your repo
local	Desktop task / daemon / /loop	the repo, build, models, local tools	the work touches local state

The recipe-selector in claude-code-loops.md is just these axes resolved to a mechanism. A loop = (trigger × posture × locus) + the state spine.

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The catalog

Each row: the axes, the recommended native mechanism, the job (gate → what it escalates), and the failure mode to watch (failure-modes.md).

Pattern	Trigger · Locus	Start tier	Mechanism	Job → escalates	Watch
daily-scan	cadence · local	L1	Desktop task (off-peak)	sweep backlog/alerts, write STATE.md → all to a human	silent-stop
pr-watch	event|cadence · connector	L1	Channel (PR webhook) or cloud routine	flag stuck/failing/conflicted PRs → never merges	runaway tokens if polled tight
ci-watch	event · local	L2	Channel (CI webhook) → fix in a worktree	failing test passes + full guard → flaky/deploy/secrets	gate reward-hacking
dep-bump	cadence · local	L2	Desktop task/daemon	patch-only behind cooldown + guard → minor/major, advisories	supply-chain
changelog-gen	event(on tag)|cadence · local	L1	tag-event or Desktop task	draft RELEASE_NOTES_DRAFT.md → human publishes	—
merge-hygiene	cadence · local	L1	Desktop task (off-peak)	dead branches / stale flags → ambiguous deletes	worktree-boundaries
issue-sort	cadence|event · connector	L1	cloud routine	classify + suggest labels → priority/dupe-close	—
metric-chase	goal · local	L2	/goal driving iterate	drive coverage/latency/bundle/eval-score to target → unreachable / guard fails	gate reward-hacking · high cost
regression-watch	cadence|event(on release) · local	L1→L2	Desktop task/daemon	run a benchmark/eval, diff vs baseline → a real regression	flaky bench = false alarm · high/run
digest	cadence · connector	L1	cloud routine	summarize email/Asana/calendar/news → nothing (read-only)	over-scoped connector
backfill	goal · local	L2/L3	/goal (+ worktree/container)	drain a migration/queue to completion → an item needing judgment	runaway budget · long
monitor	event · local	L1	Channel (error/log/deploy webhook)	triage the event → page a human on anomaly	alert fatigue · needs a live session
freshness	cadence · local	L1	Desktop task (daily/weekly)	re-check docs/data/deps vs reality → confirmed drift	transient failure ≠ drift

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Notes on the patterns that need them

• ci-watch / pr-watch — prefer event over poll. Wire a CI/PR webhook through a Channel so the tick fires on the event, not a timer. A polled pr-watch at 5 min costs ~3× a 15-min one for marginal freshness; the event-driven version costs ~nothing while quiet. At L2, ci-watch opens a fix in a worktree and hands the branch to fleet-ops; never auto-merges main.
• metric-chase is the bridge to iterate. The loop's trigger is a /goal ("coverage ≥ 90, or stop after N turns"); the work each turn is an iterate step (modify → measure → keep/discard). Use it for any measurable target — including an eval score (this is the GLM/Opus-bench shape). Highest cost class; bound it.
• digest is the canonical cloud-routine pattern. It needs connectors, not code, so it's the one archetype where the fresh-clone cloud routine is exactly right — it keeps your claude.ai connectors and runs with the machine off. Read-only: no write scopes.
• backfill is run-to-completion, not recurring. A /goal drains the queue/migration; when the condition holds it stops and clears. Bound it (or stop after N, a token budget) — it's the runaway-budget risk made flesh. For arbitrary execution, run it in a container.
• monitor is the purest event loop. An error-tracker/deploy webhook → a Channel → a persistent background session that triages and pages on anomaly. No polling at all. The trade-off is keeping that session alive.
• regression-watch runs a real suite each tick (expensive), so cadence it slowly or trigger it on a release event. Treat a transient/flaky failure as advisory (don't page on one red run) — the same exit-7-vs-exit-10 discipline our staleness verifiers use.

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Composing a pattern not in the catalog

Pick a point in the space the named patterns don't cover. Examples:

• event · connector · L1 — a Slack message (Channel) triggers a read-only lookup against a connector. (A "support-triage" loop.)
• goal · connector · L2 — drain an Asana backlog to empty via /goal, updating tasks through the connector.
• cadence · local · L3 — a nightly autonomous refactor in an isolated container.

The discipline is identical regardless of the point: bounded scope, a gate, an escalation rule, a kill switch, a budget — and start at L1.

Choosing — the short version

1. Locus first: does it touch local code? → local (Desktop task/daemon). Pure connector work? → connector (cloud routine).
2. Trigger next: is there an event to react to? → event (Channel) — cheaper + faster. A clear finish line? → goal. Otherwise → cadence, slowest that still catches the work.
3. Posture: start L1. Graduate to L2 (with a guard, worktree, escalation, land_via) only once the reports earn it; re-run loop-check + loop-doctor --live at the new tier.

See also

• risk-tiers.md — the posture axis (permission-mode mapping).
• claude-code-loops.md — the trigger/locus axes resolved to mechanisms + the recipe selector.
• failure-modes.md — the "watch" column, in depth.
• state-spine.md — the multi-loop priority order these share.
• ../assets/loop.config.template.yaml — the config every pattern fills in.