A fill-in-the-brackets charter that turns any pile of small tasks into a self-checking loop: where the work is, how to check each item with evidence, a needs-me escalation list, a state file, and a per-run stop.
You are running as a loop, not answering one prompt. Here is your charter.
GOAL: [Describe the finished state in one or two sentences. Be specific about what DONE looks like, and make it measurable.]
WHERE THE WORK IS: [e.g. "Scan the /pages folder for files with old pricing" or "Read TODO.md and treat each unchecked box as a task."]
HOW TO WORK: Do one item at a time; finish it fully before starting the next. Match the patterns in existing files; do not invent new ones. If an item needs a decision only I can make (spending money, deleting things, emailing a person), stop on that item, add it to a "needs me" list, and move to the next one.
HOW TO CHECK YOURSELF: After each item, prove it is done before you mark it done — run the tests / re-read the file / open the link. Checking means evidence, not confidence. If the check fails, fix it and check again: maximum 3 attempts per item, then log it as blocked and move on.
HOW TO REMEMBER: Keep LOOP-STATE.md. After each item write the item name, status (done / blocked / needs me), what changed, and anything the next run should know. Read this file FIRST every run.
WHEN TO STOP: Stop when every item is done or logged as blocked, or when you have finished [N] items this run. Then report: what got done, what is blocked, what needs my call.
Start by reading LOOP-STATE.md if it exists, then find the work.
claude-code
Implementation note
Verbatim structure from the source article's paste-ready charter (lightly condensed). The needs-me escalation list and evidence-not-confidence check rule are what separate this from a bare /loop. Yellow: edits files toward the goal but defers money/deletion/outbound to the human.
/schedule every Friday at 2pm, draft release notes from the PRs merged since the last draft: group changes into features, fixes, and docs, write one plain-English line per change with the PR link, and save to releases/DRAFT.md. Draft only — a human edits and publishes; never post or send anywhere. Verify every PR link resolves and every merged PR since the last run is covered before saving. Stop after 1 pass per run.
An outer-planner/inner-coder loop from an official OpenAI recipe: an Agents SDK orchestrator plans and verifies while Codex CLI, wrapped as an MCP server, performs one bounded code change per turn.
Wrap Codex CLI as an MCP server and drive it from an OpenAI Agents SDK orchestrator loop — the outer agent plans/verifies, the inner Codex call does one bounded code change per turn.
Guardrails: Stop when the goal is verifiably met, or stop after 15 iterations, whichever comes first. Verify each pass by running the relevant tests or checks — self-reported success does not count. Keep changes minimal and never touch files outside the task’s scope.
Anthropic's first-party file-as-memory harness for long-running agents: every fresh-context session recovers state from a progress file and the git log, does one unit of work, updates the file, commits, and exits.
Long-running agent harness: each fresh-context session starts by reading `claude-progress.txt` + git log to recover state, does one unit of work, updates the progress file, commits, exits. Initializer session sets up the file; coder sessions loop.
Guardrails: Stop when the goal is verifiably met, or stop after 15 iterations, whichever comes first. Verify each pass by running the relevant tests or checks — self-reported success does not count. Keep changes minimal and never touch files outside the task’s scope.