Skip to content

Add context hygiene at phase boundaries and abort budget #32

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
dmccoystephenson merged 1 commit into from
May 25, 2026
Merged

Add context hygiene at phase boundaries and abort budget #32

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
1 commit
Select commit
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions RESEARCH.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -110,6 +110,7 @@ Last reviewed: 2026-05-25.

**Implementations.**
- PR #26 (Promote 'verify each Closes #N' to template Phase 4): shipped 2026-05-25. Observed effect: pending — needs N cycles of data. Narrow application of "re-state scope at boundaries" — verifies issue numbers against actual issue content before push, countering stale-context anchoring.
- PR #32 (Context hygiene at phase boundaries): shipped 2026-05-25. Observed effect: pending — needs N cycles of data. Adds compressed plan/implementation/cycle summaries at the Phase 2 → 3, Phase 3 → 4, and Phase 8 → 9 boundaries, plus an abort-budget edge case (~500 tool calls or ~200k tokens) with a gap-issue template. Implements the second and third bullets of this finding's implications.

---

Expand Down
28 changes: 28 additions & 0 deletions create-dev-loop.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -165,6 +165,14 @@ Include `Closes #N` in the PR body for each resolved issue so GitHub auto-closes
git checkout -b {{BRANCH_PREFIX}}/<short-description>
\`\`\`

**Plan summary (re-read at the start of Phase 3).** Before exiting Phase 2, write a compressed plan in this shape:
- **Issues in scope:** `#N`, `#M`, ...
- **Branch:** `{{BRANCH_PREFIX}}/<name>`
- **Files I expect to modify:** path, path, ...
- **Invariants to preserve:** tests pass, no new placeholders without table rows, no fenced code blocks unescaped, etc. (project-specific invariants from CLAUDE.md)

Phase 3 begins by re-reading this summary. The point is to ground the implementation in a tight statement rather than the full accumulated triage transcript — per RESEARCH.md §4, context rot degrades performance even when the window isn't full.

---

### Phase 3 — Implementation
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -203,6 +211,12 @@ git diff --stat origin/{{DEFAULT_BRANCH}}
\`\`\`
If the diff exceeds **~400 net LOC** or modifies more than **~10 files**, stop and rescope: either drop one of the batched issues from the PR, or split the remaining work into a follow-up PR. Hard stop at **~800 LOC** or **~20 files** — at that size, agent PRs fail to merge at substantially higher rates (RESEARCH.md §2).

**Implementation summary (re-read at the start of Phase 4).** Before pushing, write a compressed implementation summary:
- **Files actually modified:** path, path, ...
- **Commit summary:** one line per commit
- **Test/validation result:** PASS / FAIL — name the command that produced the verdict
- **Open carryovers:** anything in scope that wasn't done and why (becomes input for Phase 9)

---

### Phase 4 — PR
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -369,6 +383,12 @@ gh issue close <number> --comment "Resolved in PR #<n>."

**Proceed to Phase 9.** Do not stop here — the self-audit is mandatory whether or not anything was implemented.

**Cycle summary (re-read at the start of Phase 9).** After merging, write a compressed cycle summary:
- **Issues closed:** `#N`, `#M`
- **PR(s) merged:** `#X`
- **Surprises:** anything that didn't go as expected (anchor for the self-audit's reflection prompts)
- **Followups filed:** any new issues filed mid-cycle and where

---

### Phase 9 — Self-audit
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -426,6 +446,14 @@ git checkout {{DEFAULT_BRANCH}}
git push origin --delete {{BRANCH_PREFIX}}/<name>
\`\`\`
**Two issues conflict mid-implementation:** finish the further-along one; file a note on the other.
**Cycle exceeds abort budget:** if the cycle's tool calls exceed ~500 or accumulated context exceeds ~200k tokens without converging, abort rather than push through. The half-life model (RESEARCH.md §4) predicts persistence past a budget is strictly worse than restart with fresh context. Steps:
1. Mark the in-flight PR `Draft` (`gh pr ready --undo <number>`) or, if no PR is open, push the branch with a `WIP:` commit so work isn't lost.
2. File a gap issue on `dmccoystephenson/<slug>-dev-loop` with title `Abort budget exceeded on <branch>` and body containing:
- **Issues in scope:** the `#N`s the cycle was trying to close
- **Files modified so far:** path list
- **Where convergence stalled:** the last phase reached and what was blocking it
- **Suggested next attempt:** what to try differently on the next run
3. Exit. Do not return to Phase 1 in the same context — restart in a fresh session.
**No issues and no improvements found:** report what was checked; end the loop.
```

Expand Down