autoresearch

name	autoresearch
description	Operate the autoresearch engine — run experiments, check status, review logs. Use when: 'run autoresearch', 'status', 'what experiments', 'check results', 'how is autoresearch doing'.
allowed-tools	Bash, Read, Glob, Grep
argument-hint	[run|status|logs]

/autoresearch — Autonomous Improvement Engine

This project is autoresearch — an autonomous code improvement engine. It runs experiments: edit code → measure a metric → keep if improved, discard if not → commit with audit trail. Any metric, any language, any repo. The .autoresearch/config.yaml marker defines what to measure.

Invocation: /autoresearch [subcommand]

Subcommand	What it does	Modifies state?
run	Register marker + run experiment(s) locally	Yes
status	Dashboard: marker config, state, last results	No
logs	Experiment history, kept commits, log files	No

If no subcommand given, default to status.

---

Subcommand: run

Step 1 — Detect marker from config:

REPO_ROOT="$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"
MARKER_NAME=$(grep -m1 '^\s*- name:' "${REPO_ROOT}/.autoresearch/config.yaml" 2>/dev/null | sed 's/.*name:\s*//')
REPO_NAME=$(basename "$REPO_ROOT")

Step 2 — Register marker (idempotent):

autoresearch add --path "$REPO_ROOT"

Step 3 — Run experiment loop:

cd "$REPO_ROOT" && autoresearch run --marker "${REPO_NAME}:${MARKER_NAME}"

AI-JUDGMENT: Stream output. When complete, summarize:

• Experiments ran, kept vs discarded
• Final metric value
• Whether HALT fired
• Next action suggestion

---

Subcommand: status

bash .claude/skills/autoresearch/scripts/10_marker_status.sh

AI-JUDGMENT: Format as a dashboard:

AUTORESEARCH STATUS
════════════════════════════════════════════════

◼ MARKER: <repo>:<marker>
  Status:          <active/paused/needs_human>
  Last run:        <timestamp or never>
  Experiments:     <total>  Kept: <n>  Discarded: <n>
  Metric baseline: <baseline>
  Current metric:  <current or unmeasured>
  Direction:       <lower/higher>
  Budget:          <budget per experiment>

◼ CONFIG
  Mutable:    <paths>
  Immutable:  <paths>
  Metric cmd: <command>
  Guard cmd:  <command>
  Auto-merge: <enabled/disabled> → <target_branch>

◼ RESULTS (last experiments)
  COMMIT     METRIC  GUARD  STATUS     DESCRIPTION
  <rows from results.tsv>

Flag actionable items:

• No results yet → suggest /autoresearch run
• All discarded → metric or agent may be stuck
• Marker not registered → run autoresearch add first
• Config missing → run autoresearch init first

---

Subcommand: logs

bash .claude/skills/autoresearch/scripts/40_logs_summary.sh

AI-JUDGMENT: Format results.tsv as readable table. Interpret:

• Which experiments kept vs discarded — pattern analysis
• Files modified (from git log)
• Metric trending down/up (good depends on direction) or flat (stuck)
• Log files: summarize last experiment's agent output if available
• Suggested next action

---

Rules

• Auto-detect everything: Marker name, repo name, paths — all from .autoresearch/config.yaml and git. Never hardcode.
• Deterministic: Run scripts exactly as shown. Do not inline script contents.
• Graceful degradation: ERROR: in output → show UNAVAILABLE, continue with other sections.
• Read-only except run: status and logs never modify anything.
• Local only: No SSH, no remote APIs, no GitHub Actions. Everything from local files.

Scripts

Script	Purpose
10_marker_status.sh	Marker config + state.json + results.tsv
40_logs_summary.sh	Results + git log + agent log files