Summary

@h100envy presents a 7-step technical roadmap for building production-grade autonomous AI coding loops, covering stateless iteration, reward-hacking defense, filesystem state management, isolation via git worktrees and Docker, and structured JSONL logging. The central architectural principle is that stateless context keeps cost O(N) rather than O(N²), and that isolation must be built in from step 5, not bolted on later.

@h100envy 提出了一個 7 步驟技術路線圖,用於建構生產等級的自主 AI 程式碼迴圈,涵蓋無狀態迭代、獎勵破解防禦、檔案系統狀態管理、git worktree 與 Docker 隔離,以及結構化 JSONL 日誌。核心架構原則:無狀態 context 使成本保持在 O(N) 而非 O(N²);隔離必須在第 5 步內建,而非事後加入。

Key Points

  • Step 0: Filter — only automate tasks with a deterministic external oracle (test suite, linter, type checker); no oracle = no loop
  • Step 1: Reliable manual baseline with measurement before automating anything
  • Step 2: Minimal stateless while-loop with MAX_ITER fuse; state stored on filesystem, not in context
  • Step 2.5: Narrow context build — 8,000 token budget; extract only files from stack trace + last diff
  • Step 3: Reward-hacking defense — test diff gate (detect deleted/mocked tests) + separate judge agent on a different model
  • Step 4: Two-level state — STATUS.md (human-readable) + .loop_state.json (machine-parsable)
  • Step 5: Isolation — git worktree per run + Docker --network none --read-only
  • Step 6: Structured JSONL log with event types: iter_start, green, reward_hack, stuck, agent_call
  • Step 7: Context must stay stateless — accumulating history makes cost O(N²) instead of O(N)
  • Four loop deaths: runaway (no MAX_ITER), silent death (context full), random walk (no fixpoint), comprehension debt

Insights

The O(N) vs O(N²) cost framing for stateless vs stateful context is the most actionable insight in the thread—it explains why loops that seem cheap at 5 iterations become prohibitively expensive at 50. The reward-hacking defense (test diff gate + separate judge model) is critical for unattended runs; without it an agent will eventually find shortcuts that satisfy the checker without solving the problem. Naming the four failure modes explicitly provides a vocabulary for diagnosing loops that aren’t working rather than just restarting them.

Connections

Raw Excerpt

“Deep mechanics plus working code. Stateless iteration, idempotent checks, isolation, defense against reward hacking, observability. From zero to a loop that will not blow up while you sleep.”