Loop Engineering: Ship While You're Away
When you type "do phase 2", wait, then type "do phase 3", you are the for loop. Loop Engineering hands that loop to the agent - safely. You build it in layers: feedback gates that earn the right to walk away, a sandbox that bounds the blast radius, the Ralph loop that runs unattended, a GitHub-issue backlog that doubles as the agent's memory, routing that keeps humans where taste lives, and a scheduled automation ladder. By the capstone you have a loop that wakes on schedule, pulls the top task off your backlog, ships a PR behind quality gates, and reports back. Every lesson ends with a copy-paste practice on your own repo. The practical sequel to Harness 101.
Created by
Jason Zhou · Founder, AI Builder Club
Course Outline
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Module 0 – Orientation
What you will ship, and the reframe that starts it: you are the for loop your agent runs inside.
Module 1 – Feedback Gates: Earn the Right to Walk Away
Machine gates, not steering, are the license to go unattended: the ship skill, pre-commit enforcement, and a lab that proves the gate bites.
Module 2 – The Sandbox
The blast radius of an unattended agent, choosing your isolation, and a lab that builds the agent container.
Module 3 – The Loop Itself
The Ralph loop dissected line by line, the loop prompt, observability for a run you did not watch, and your first unattended run.
Module 4 – The Backlog
Don't plan, queue: PRD to backlog, issues as the agent's memory, the pick rule, and a full pipeline lab.
Module 5 – Routing: Humans Where Taste Lives
The taste test for HITL vs AFK, the QA loop, and running two lanes - planning and implementation - over one repo at once.
Module 6 – Production: The Automation Ladder
From on-demand to scheduled autonomy, guardrails at scale, the Daily Shipper capstone, and compounding the system.