/loop-budget
Check token budget and run-log spend before and after a loop run. Enforces early exit when over budget or when there is no actionable work.
$ npx -y skills add cobusgreyling/loop-engineering --skill loop-budget --agent claude-codeHow it fires
How this skill gets triggered: by you, by Claude, or both.
- Fires itselfAuto-invocation. Claude auto-loads it when your prompt matches the work.Auto-invocation is when the right skill fires by itself at the right moment, driven by a FLOW.md router and a hook, instead of you invoking it by name. It is the difference between a skill being installed and a skill actually getting used.Read the full definition →
- You can call itInvoke it directly when you want it.
- Slash command
/loop-budget
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The summary Claude sees to decide when to auto-load this skill.
Check token budget and run-log spend before and after a loop run. Enforces early exit when over budget or when there is no actionable work.
SKILL.md
loop-budget.SKILL.mdname: loop-budget
description: Check token budget and run-log spend before and after a loop run. Enforces early exit when over budget or when there is no actionable work.
Loop Budget Guard
Run at the **start** and **end** of every loop iteration.
Start of run
1. Read `loop-budget.md` for daily caps and kill-switch flags. 2. Read recent entries in `loop-run-log.md` (last 24h). 3. Sum `tokens_estimate` for the active pattern today. 4. If spend ≥ 80% of the pattern's daily cap → **report-only mode** (no sub-agents, no auto-fix). 5. If spend ≥ 90% and High Priority items remain in `STATE.md`, yield to the [budget-negotiator](../budget-negotiator/SKILL.md) skill (if installed). Otherwise, if spend ≥ 100% or `loop-pause-all` is set → **exit immediately** with a one-line note in STATE.md. 6. If watchlist/state has no actionable items → **exit in <5k tokens** (do not spawn sub-agents).
End of run
Append one JSON object to `loop-run-log.md`:
{
"run_id": "<ISO8601>",
"pattern": "<pattern-id>",
"duration_s": <number>,
"items_found": <number>,
"actions_taken": <number>,
"escalations": <number>,
"tokens_estimate": <number>,
"outcome": "no-op | report-only | fix-proposed | escalated"
}Rules
- Never exceed `max sub-agent spawns/run` from `loop-budget.md`.
- High-cadence patterns (CI Sweeper, PR Babysitter) **must** early-exit when nothing is actionable.
- On self-throttle, append a line to `loop-budget.md` under **Alerts This Period**.
Read more
name: loop-budget description: Check token budget and run-log spend before and after a loop run. Enforces early exit when over budget or when there is no actionable work.
Loop Budget Guard
Run at the **start** and **end** of every loop iteration.
Start of run
1. Read `loop-budget.md` for daily caps and kill-switch flags. 2. Read recent entries in `loop-run-log.md` (last 24h). 3. Sum `tokens_estimate` for the active pattern today. 4. If spend ≥ 80% of the pattern's daily cap → **report-only mode** (no sub-agents, no auto-fix). 5. If spend ≥ 90% and High Priority items remain in `STATE.md`, yield to the [budget-negotiator](../budget-negotiator/SKILL.md) skill (if installed). Otherwise, if spend ≥ 100% or `loop-pause-all` is set → **exit immediately** with a one-line note in STATE.md. 6. If watchlist/state has no actionable items → **exit in <5k tokens** (do not spawn sub-agents).
End of run
Append one JSON object to `loop-run-log.md`:
{
"run_id": "<ISO8601>",
"pattern": "<pattern-id>",
"duration_s": <number>,
"items_found": <number>,
"actions_taken": <number>,
"escalations": <number>,
"tokens_estimate": <number>,
"outcome": "no-op | report-only | fix-proposed | escalated"
}Rules
- Never exceed `max sub-agent spawns/run` from `loop-budget.md`.
- High-cadence patterns (CI Sweeper, PR Babysitter) **must** early-exit when nothing is actionable.
- On self-throttle, append a line to `loop-budget.md` under **Alerts This Period**.
Stop prompting. Design the loop. Get a score. loop init (or loop-init) scaffolds skills, state, and budget files, then prints your Loop Ready score and first loop command. loop doctor combines audit + sync + file checks into top-3 next actions.
Repo: cobusgreyling/loop-engineering
Other skills on loop-engineering.
- /budget-negotiator
An advanced skill for L3 autonomous loops. When the token budget nears exhaustion, the agent analyzes its ROI and autonomously drafts a negotiation request for a budget increase rather than silently failing.
Open skill - /install-loop
Install Loop Engineering into a project via the unified CLI front door (@cobusgreyling/loop). Prefer this over invoking loop-init / loop-audit separately. Week-one is report-only; never enable auto-merge or unattended fixes unless the human explicitly asks and doctor is healthy.
Open skill - /loop-constraints
Read loop-constraints.md at the start of every run and enforce every rule. This skill runs BEFORE triage or any action skill. Constraints are binding.
Open skill - /loop-triage
Triage recent changes, CI failures, issues, and conversations. Produces a concise, actionable findings report suitable for a loop to consume. Writes structured output to a state file or Linear board.
Open skill - /loop-verifier
Independent verification agent for loop-produced changes. Finds reasons to reject. Runs tests. Confirms diff scope. Use after minimal-fix or any implementer sub-agent — never in the same role as the implementer.
Open skill - /minimal-fix
Produce the smallest possible code change that fixes a specific, well-scoped issue (CI failure, reviewer comment, typo). Use only when the fix target is explicit. Never refactor unrelated code.
Open skill