/honey-loop

name: honey-loop
description: >-
  Cost discipline for recurring /loop runs. A loop multiplies per-iteration cost
  by iteration count, so waste compounds. Encodes cache-aware pacing (avoid the
  300s dead zone), event-driven-over-polling, a no-change short-circuit, a compact
  state handle carried between ticks, and a stop condition. Use when a /loop is
  running or being set up — especially long-lived or frequently-firing ones.
license: MIT

Honey Loop

A loop is the one place token waste *compounds*: `cost = per_tick × ticks`. The honey levers still apply inside each tick (less code, less prose), but a loop adds two leaks the single-shot levers don't cover — **re-paying for context** every wake-up, and **re-doing work** that didn't change. Cut those.

The five levers

1. **Pace to the cache, skip the dead zone.** The prompt cache TTL is 5 min.

• `< 270s` → context stays warm; right for actively polling external state.
• `≥ 1200s` → one cache miss amortized over a long idle wait; the default for

idle ticks (use **1200–1800s**).

• **`~300s` is the worst choice** — pays the cache miss without amortizing it.

Never round to "5 minutes." Drop to 270s or commit to 1200s+.

2. **Event-driven over polling.** Harness-tracked work (background `Bash`, `Agent`, `Workflow`) re-invokes you automatically on completion. Don't schedule a short tick to poll it — that re-reads full context for nothing. Set a long fallback heartbeat (`1200s+`) and let the completion notification drive you. Poll only external state the harness can't see (CI, a deploy, a remote queue), at a cadence matched to how fast that state actually changes.

3. **No-change short-circuit.** Re-generating output is the bulk of per-tick cost. Check cheaply first (a hash, a timestamp, a `git rev-parse`, a status field). If nothing changed: emit **one line** and reschedule. Don't redo the task, don't re-read the world, don't write a report.

4. **Carry a compact state handle, don't re-derive.** Keep what the loop has done so far in a small file (`.honey-loop/state.json` or a `<<honey:HASH>>` stash via `eso stash`), and read *that* each tick — not the full history re-discovered from scratch. Lever 3b: the cheapest input token is the one that never re-enters context.

5. **Define done; then stop.** An unbounded loop is unbounded cost. State the exit condition up front (target reached, N empty ticks, deadline). When met, end the loop — omit the wake-up reschedule. "Loop forever" is a bug, not a feature.

Per-tick output: ultra by default

A loop tick is an agent-to-self / agent-to-log message, not a deliverable. Default to **ultra**: status line only, near-zero prose. One line is enough — `tick 4/∞ · no change · next 1800s`. Step up to a full report **only** on the tick where something actually needs the user (state changed, a decision, an error).

Don't cut

• The **stop/exit check** — dropping it is how a loop runs all night.
• **Error surfacing** — a tick that hit an error reports it; silent failure in a

loop hides for hours.

• The **cheap pre-check** in lever 3 — skipping it to "just redo it" defeats the point.