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Article · 2026-07-14 · 6 moments

What is “loop engineering?”

There’s talk about loop engineering, but what is it exactly? I looked into it, and found triggers, cron jobs, AI slop & more. Is it a “here today, gone tomorrow” trend? ✦ AI generated

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GUEST Boris ChernyGUEST Addy OsmaniGUEST Geoffrey HuntleyGUEST Matt PocockGUEST OpenAI (Codex documentation)GUEST Oded MesserHOST Gergely Orosz
01
Mechanism

A Goal is fundamentally different from a normal prompt because it gives the agent a durable completion condition to pursue across multiple turns rather than a single instruction to execute once.

OpenAI's Codex documentation explains that unlike a normal prompt, which is executed once and waits for the next instruction, a Goal attaches a durable target to a thread so the agent keeps working and self-checking until the objective is satisfied.

transcript

OpenAI (Codex documentation): A normal prompt says: do this next thing. A Goal says: keep working until this outcome is true. In a normal request, Codex works through the immediate instruction, reports a result, and waits. With a Goal, Codex has a durable target attached to the thread.

02
Example

Coding agents can work through your backlog overnight so you wake up to a batch of working code ready for review.

Matt Pocock describes the appeal of the Ralph-style loop as letting a coding agent chew through a backlog overnight, producing a batch of working code to review the next morning.

transcript

Matt Pocock: One of the dreams of coding agents is that you can wake up in the morning to working code, where your coding agent has worked through your backlog. It has spit out a whole bunch of code for you to review, and it works.

rebuts · 1

03
Claim◆

Loop engineering is really just old-school automation like cron jobs and triggers rebranded, since a fully automatable strategic workflow either becomes tactical AI work or is plain automation, and people seem to have forgotten automation predates LLMs.

Oded Messer argues that 'loop engineering' is mostly a rebrand of long-existing automation patterns (cron jobs, triggers), and that a truly automatable strategic workflow is either just tactical AI use or old-school automation — not a new concept.

transcript

Oded Messer: The idea is that strategic workflows that are repeatable and automatable can be done so with an agent. OK. But if my strategic workflow is automatable then it either becomes tactical if the AI is capable enough or it's just a high level old-school-automation I can set up like a cron or a trigger. The name suggests simplicity and repetition. Sometimes it feels like AI enthusiasts forgot automation was a thing before LLMs.

06
Definition◆

Ralph is deliberately a simple, deterministic Bash loop that re-prompts the agent repeatedly, and despite its defects it can replace most outsourced greenfield engineering work while still requiring senior engineers to guide it.

Geoffrey Huntley describes 'Ralph' as a bare-bones Bash loop repeatedly feeding a prompt file to a coding agent, calling it deterministically bad but useful — and insists it still requires senior engineers to guide it, dismissing claims that agents alone can do 100% of the work.

transcript

Geoffrey Huntley: Ralph is a technique. In its purest form, Ralph is a Bash loop: while :; do cat PROMPT.md | claude-code ; done. Ralph can replace the majority of outsourcing at most companies for greenfield projects. It has defects, but these are identifiable and resolvable through various styles of prompts. That's the beauty of Ralph - the technique is deterministically bad in a nondeterministic world.

Highlight slides
Boris Cherny: "My Job Is to Write Loops"✦ from: My job is no longer to write prompts for Claude — it's to write loops that prompt Claude and figure out what to do."Loop Engineering" Is Just Automation, Rebranded✦ from: Loop engineering is really just old-school automation like cron jobs and triggers rebranded, since a fully automatable strategic workflow either becomes tactical AI work or is plain automation, and people seem to have forgotten automation predates LLMs.What Ralph Actually Is✦ from: Ralph is deliberately a simple, deterministic Bash loop that re-prompts the agent repeatedly, and despite its defects it can replace most outsourced greenfield engineering work while still requiring senior engineers to guide it.Deterministically Bad, Still Useful✦ from: Ralph is deliberately a simple, deterministic Bash loop that re-prompts the agent repeatedly, and despite its defects it can replace most outsourced greenfield engineering work while still requiring senior engineers to guide it.Old Job vs. New Job✦ from: My job is no longer to write prompts for Claude — it's to write loops that prompt Claude and figure out what to do.The Naming Problem✦ from: Loop engineering is really just old-school automation like cron jobs and triggers rebranded, since a fully automatable strategic workflow either becomes tactical AI work or is plain automation, and people seem to have forgotten automation predates LLMs.Not a Replacement for Engineers✦ from: Ralph is deliberately a simple, deterministic Bash loop that re-prompts the agent repeatedly, and despite its defects it can replace most outsourced greenfield engineering work while still requiring senior engineers to guide it.
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