loopx-self-repair

name

loopx-self-repair

description

Diagnose and repair LoopX control-plane drift or agent behavior drift. Use when a LoopX task makes unexpectedly small progress, follows a stale or contradictory recommended_action, ignores a higher-priority blocked item while doing fallback work, reports vague owner/user gates, loses todo projection, misaligns benchmark treatment with the real product path, mixes temporary artifacts into commits, or when the user asks for root-cause analysis, self-repair, or why the harness/agent behaved unexpectedly.

LoopX Self Repair

Use this skill to turn a surprising LoopX behavior into a durable fix, not only an apology or a one-off explanation.

Repair Loop

1. Pause delivery selection. Do not spend quota or continue adapter work until the control-plane facts explain why that work is valid.

2. Build a compact evidence packet. Prefer structured surfaces:

   git status --short --branch
   loopx --format json diagnose --goal-id <goal-id>
   loopx --format json status --goal-id <goal-id> --limit 20
   loopx --format json quota should-run --goal-id <goal-id> [--agent-id <agent-id>]
   loopx --format json history --goal-id <goal-id> --limit 5
   

   status defaults to the registry/dashboard view, but accepts --goal-id when the repair needs one goal-focused projection. Use diagnose --goal-id for the richer goal-specific agent reasoning packet. Also inspect the project-local registry and the registry-declared active state file when relevant. Use the shared global registry for heartbeat/quota truth.

3. Classify the failure. Read references/repair-patterns.md and match the symptoms to a known pattern. If no pattern fits, add one after the fix.

4. Assign the responsible layer. Separate:

   • agent behavior mistake;
   • state projection or quota payload bug;
   • active-state authoring gap;
   • benchmark harness mismatch;
   • docs/process hygiene gap.

5. Repair at the lowest durable layer.

   • If it is a one-off agent mistake, write back the correct state/todo and continue with a larger bounded batch.
   • If the machine projection misled the agent, fix CLI/status/quota projection and add a focused smoke.
   • If the user correction changes the goal acceptance, says the agent missed the intended loop, or exposes a product bottleneck that is not visible in quota/status, write a bounded goal_vision_replan_contract_v0 packet with replan_trigger_summary through normal loopx refresh-state --vision-* fields, using the same --agent-id as the current lane, or --agent-vision-json for generated multi-field patches, before returning to delivery. If the next executable step is already known, also add or link the concrete successor todo; do not leave the correction only in chat or an incident note.
   • If a design rule is missing, update the interaction model or todo list before implementing broad behavior.
   • If benchmark evidence is not attributable, add posthoc trace/parity checks before claiming uplift or regression.

6. Validate before resuming. Run the smallest smoke or CLI check that would have caught the issue, plus loopx check on changed public surfaces when docs/contracts changed.

7. Write back the lesson. Update active goal state, docs, contributor tasks, or this skill so the same failure mode is visible next time.

Upstream Issue Escalation

A public GitHub issue is an optional final escalation, not a default side effect of self-repair. Consider it only when the responsible layer is a reusable LoopX product, CLI, skill, installer, or control-plane gap and durable upstream tracking adds value beyond the local repair or PR.

Read references/upstream-issue-escalation.md before publishing anything. Invoking this skill never grants publication permission. The guarded path must:

1. reject private, project-specific, support-only, and security-sensitive reports;
2. reduce the evidence to a minimal public-safe reproduction and scan the draft with loopx check;
3. search open and closed issues by a stable fingerprint before creating one;
4. auto-submit only under explicit current-turn approval or durable owner opt-in; otherwise show the exact draft and ask once for confirmation;
5. create at most one issue per repair turn, then record the existing or new issue URL in the relevant LoopX todo/evidence writeback.

If qualification, authority, authentication, boundary scanning, or duplicate search is uncertain, preserve the draft and stop before publication. Prefer a direct fix or PR when no separate issue is needed for coordination.

Vision / Replan Writeback

Use the bounded vision contract when self-repair discovers that LoopX did not notice a missing outcome, route, or acceptance condition by itself. The packet is the bridge from human or agent insight to quota-visible replan state:

{
  "schema_version": "goal_vision_replan_contract_v0",
  "state": "vision_drift_detected",
  "vision_patch": {
    "vision_summary": "Name the corrected route or acceptance target.",
    "acceptance_summary": "Name the machine-visible condition that must hold.",
    "replan_trigger_summary": "Name why the current frontier is insufficient."
  },
  "todo_delta": ["create_successor"]
}

Record it with normal inline refresh-state --vision-summary --vision-acceptance --vision-replan-trigger fields using the same --agent-id that ran the repair. Use --agent-vision-json when a generated patch is clearer than a command line. Pair --autonomous-replan-recorded only after a bounded replan delta was actually written, such as a successor todo, no-follow-up rationale, blocker, or updated vision. A vision patch without a runnable todo is still useful: quota should-run can promote its replan_trigger_summary into goal_frontier_projection.acceptance_gaps[] when the advancement frontier is empty.

If the repair concludes that the existing per-agent vision is still correct, close the required checkpoint with --vision-unchanged-reason instead of writing a fake patch. If a material refresh-state lacks both a patch and an unchanged/no-follow-up decision, LoopX should preserve a per-agent vision_checkpoint_v0 with decision=missing_required so the same agent's next quota check can enter replan.

Evidence Discipline

• Do not read or commit raw private logs, trajectories, verifier output, credentials, internal links, or production material.
• Do not solve contradictory payloads by guessing. If recommended_action, goal_boundary.write_scope, todos, and interaction contract disagree, treat that as a projection bug or state authoring bug first.
• Do not let fallback work hide the primary blocker. When a higher-priority path is gated but safe fallback is valid, report both the concrete gate and the fallback progress.
• Do not let tiny safe steps become the default. If several recent turns are short or surface-only, run a steering audit and increase the next bounded batch size unless a real gate blocks it.

Reference Routes

• For known symptom-to-repair mappings, read references/repair-patterns.md.
• For guarded public GitHub issue escalation, read references/upstream-issue-escalation.md.
• For user/agent/state channel semantics, read ../../docs/state-interaction-model.md and ../../docs/interaction-pattern-catalog.md.
• For quota and heartbeat decisions, read ../../docs/quota-allocation.md and ../../docs/heartbeat-automation-prompt.md.
• For commit/PR hygiene failures, read ../../AGENTS.md.