Autonomous loop

What you'll build

A skill that fires on its own clock and does real work without you. It reads state, decides, and acts. Two common shapes:

• Ship more work to the kid: a planner skill authors tomorrow's tasks based on yesterday's analysis.
• Publish a report or brief on cadence: pair with Reports and briefs to fire the analyzer every morning, every Sunday, every end-of-session.

When you want a different call, you tell Sprout's in-app agent and it makes the change for you.

Pieces you'll combine

• Heartbeat: the cron-driven trigger.
• A run skill: a home_agent skill that does one full cycle.
• Sprout's in-app agent: how you intervene (cancel, modify, pause).

Build it

Three movements:

1. Author the run skill that does one cycle (read, decide, act).

skill.write({
name: "<Cycle name>",
description: "What one fire of the loop does.",
category: "home_agent",
prompt: `For {{input.child_name}} ({{input.child_id}}):
1. Read state (task.list, the latest analysis card, etc).
2. Decide what to do next.
3. Act: task.create, skill.invoke, skill.post_result.`,
handsReferenced: ["task_list", "skill_invoke"],
inputVariables: [{ name: "child_name" }, { name: "child_id" }]
})
# Returns { skillId: "<runSkillId>" }

2. Schedule it with heartbeat.create.

heartbeat.create({
name: "<Loop name>",
cron: "0 9 * * *",                  // daily at 9am
tz: "America/New_York",
runSkillId: "<runSkillId>",
skillInput: { child_name: "<name>", child_id: "<kidId>" }
})
# Returns { heartbeatId, chatId, nextFireAt }
# Cadence cap: 4 fires per 24h enforced server-side.

3. Intervene through Sprout's agent when you want a different call.

Sprout's in-app agent calls task.update or task.delete on your behalf based on your natural-language request.

When to use it

• The procedure needs to run on its own clock.
• The output isn't the same every time (otherwise a recurring task with scheduleSpec.days would suffice).
• Anti-pattern: fixed-content recurrence (same prompt every weekday at 5pm). Use a recurring task instead.

Tools touched

• heartbeat.create, heartbeat.update, heartbeat.describe.
• skill.invoke (inside the run skill).
• task.update, task.delete (via Sprout's agent on parent intervention).

Recommended skills

Drop these into your library to compose with this pattern.

Seen in walkthroughs

Solar system learning loop Weekly family brief Chore + photo proof

Related patterns

• Reports and briefs: the artifact pattern most commonly cadenced by this loop.
• Reactive loop: the push twin. Sprout events trigger the cycle instead of a cron.