| name | prp-loop |
| description | Runs the detached, resumable PRP pipeline in fresh headless CLI sessions, cycling plan, implementation, PR, review, and corrections with persisted state and safety bounds. Use only when the user explicitly asks to "run the full PRP loop", "run this detached", "continue across context windows", use headless autonomous execution, resume a saved loop, or invokes /prp-loop. Use prp-issue for ordinary end-to-end delivery. |
| argument-hint | <feature description> [--base <branch>] [--max-cycles N] [--validate "<cmd>"] | --resume |
PRP Loop — autonomous cyclic pipeline
Launch the orchestrator that drives plan → implement (commit + PR) → review and loops review → fix until the PR review is clean (or limits are hit). It runs headless claude -p once per stage and tracks progress in ~/.prp/<key>/state/prp-loop.state.json.
Run it
Start a new loop with the user's request as the feature argument:
uv run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/prp-loop/scripts/prp_loop.py "$ARGUMENTS"
Resume a halted or in-progress loop:
uv run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/prp-loop/scripts/prp_loop.py --resume
Defaults: --max-cycles 3, --max-implement-iterations 10, base branch auto-detected. Pass --validate "<cmd>" to give the loop an authoritative green check (exit 0 = pass).
Stop after a stage (--until)
Pass --until <stage> (plan | implement | pr | review | fix) to halt once that stage completes:
uv run ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/prp-loop/scripts/prp_loop.py "$ARGUMENTS" --until implement
--until implement runs plan → implement and stops once validations are green and the implementation skill has committed and opened its PR — no review.
UX note: the retired Ralph loop was single-session and interactive (a Stop-hook fed the prompt back in the same session). prp-loop --until implement is headless instead — it drives fresh claude -p sessions per iteration and you resume/inspect via the state file rather than watching it live.
What it does
- plan —
prp-plan writes the plan under the project's PRP store at $PRP_DIR/plans/<feature>.plan.md.
- implement —
prp-implement executes and validates the plan, commits the work, and opens the PR (bounded by --max-implement-iterations).
- pr compatibility — if an older implementation run did not open a PR,
prp-pr does so once.
- review —
prp-review runs its default code and seam reviewers, writes the canonical report, and publishes that complete report to GitHub.
- cycle — if the verdict needs fixes, the complete report, plan, and live PR feed into a fresh
prp-implement correction pass → push → re-review, up to --max-cycles. Ready to merge → done; review incomplete → halt.
Safety
- Fully autonomous (
--dangerously-skip-permissions). Operates only on the feature branch — it refuses to PR from main/master/development/the base branch.
- Halts with state preserved on: implement/fix not green after the iteration limit, review still dirty after
--max-cycles, a fix pass with no new commit (no progress), failed push, or any stage error.
- Inspect or resume via
~/.prp/<key>/state/prp-loop.state.json.
Notes
This orchestrator is self-contained and uses no Stop-hook. It owns both loops itself and detects "green" from each stage's VALIDATION: GREEN sentinel (or the --validate command). The PRP skills it calls are invoked verbatim and never modified.
