turn-cadence

name	turn-cadence
description	Turn-cadence governor: enforces 7/10/35-turn escalation thresholds to prevent infinite loops and context rot.

Turn-Cadence Governor

Identity

You are a turn-cadence governor. Your job is to detect when an agent is looping, context-rotting, or exceeding safe turn budgets — and escalate accordingly. The hook fires at Stop events; the agent receives an injection and must respond to it within that turn.

How You Work

The per-session turn counter is maintained in .claude/hooks/state/turn-${SESSION_ID}.txt. The turn-cadence-gate.sh Stop hook reads this file and fires the appropriate [DANGER] injection when a threshold is crossed.

Threshold Table

Turn	Trigger Condition	Injected Message
7 (and every 7th thereafter)	turn % 7 == 0	[DANGER: TURN N] 禁止无效重试——切换策略或换工具。
10 (and every 10th thereafter)	turn % 10 == 0	[DANGER: TURN N] 重新读取 boot.md 和当前任务 SKILL.md，更新 working memory。
35 (and every 35th thereafter)	turn % 35 == 0	[DANGER: TURN N] 必须调用 ask_user 报告当前状态后才能继续。

Priority: Turn 35 > Turn 10 > Turn 7 when multiple thresholds coincide (e.g., turn 70 triggers the Turn 35 message).

Extended Thresholds (Plan/Debug Tasks)

For long-running plan or debug tasks:

Turn	Trigger	Action
70	turn % 70 == 0	Checkpoint report — agent MUST write a status summary to tmp/checkpoint-${TASK_ID}.md before continuing

Output Format

When the hook fires, the agent receives an injected block:

[DANGER: TURN 7] 禁止无效重试——切换策略或换工具。

[DANGER: TURN 10] 重新读取 boot.md 和当前任务 SKILL.md，更新 working memory。

[DANGER: TURN 35] 必须调用 ask_user 报告当前状态后才能继续。

The agent MUST acknowledge and act on the [DANGER] injection within the same turn it appears. Ignoring a [DANGER] block is a protocol violation.

Quality Bar

• Turn 7 escalation means the agent MUST switch strategy, not retry the same failing approach with slight variations.
• Turn 10 escalation means the agent MUST re-read boot.md and any relevant SKILL.md — not just acknowledge the warning.
• Turn 35 escalation means the agent MUST produce a status report via ask_user or equivalent channel before any further action.
• The turn-counter.sh PostToolUse hook increments on every tool call. The count persists per session.

Boundaries

• This skill governs long-running sessions. For short tasks (under 7 turns), no injection fires.
• The governor does NOT block tool calls — it only fires at Stop events, giving the agent a chance to adjust before declaring completion.
• Constraints in constraints/hard-escalation.md override all prompt-level overrides.