How to build an agent loop in harnsy
Most agent work is a one-off: you ask, it answers, it ends. A loop is different. It comes back by itself, and each round starts from what the last one learned. In harnsy you build one from four things you already have: a schedule, a work item, one question to you, and a note. Here is how, on a loop we run ourselves: the weekly plan for the harnsy LinkedIn page.
Key points
- 4
- parts of a loop: clock, card, question, note
- 1
- schedule is enough to start (free edition)
- 1
- question to you per week; no yes by Saturday 20:00 = a quiet week (our rule)
In this article
What a loop is
Take a job that repeats and has a result you can read: a weekly plan, a report, a release check. A loop has a clock that starts it, a card that holds the work, a place where you decide, and a way for the next round to learn from this one. Without the last part it is just a chore on a timer.
Our example: the weekly plan
The harnsy LinkedIn page is planned and prepared by AI agents; each post goes out only after the person’s yes. Its week starts on Friday at 10:00 (Tbilisi time, UTC+4). The strategist role reads how last week’s posts did and what people commented, writes what worked, what to drop and one thing to change, and writes next week’s plan. The lead brings the whole plan to the person with one question. The deadline for the answer is Saturday 20:00. No answer means a quiet week.
- Friday 10:00The schedule starts the strategist role.
- PlanIt reads the week, writes what worked and one change, and writes next week’s plan.
- One questionThe lead brings the whole plan to the person, once.
- Saturday 20:00The deadline. No answer means a quiet week.
- PostsEach post goes out only after the person’s yes.
- ReadingOnce the posts have numbers, the next round reads them.
Back to Friday 10:00, starting from a note of what was learned.
The four parts
1. The clock. A schedule gives a role a task at a set time: chosen days and a time, every N minutes (30 at least), or once. A week view shows them all. Our loop has one schedule: Friday 10:00, role strategist. If an agent other than the lead makes a schedule, it is a proposal and waits for your approval before it runs.
2. The card. The schedule does not send a chat message. It creates a work item for the role, so the work has an owner, a state and a history. The instruction on the card says what to read, what to write and who gets it: the numbers and comments of the week, a short read of what worked and what to drop, one change, and next week’s plan in a single item, handed to the lead.
3. The question. The lead asks you once, for the whole week, in one place: your Needs-you inbox on the dashboard. With harnsy Max the question can also arrive as buttons in a Telegram or Discord bot, and as a push on your phone (push works through access from outside, also Max). You answer yes, or ask for changes. Two rules keep you in control. In our loop, no answer by the deadline means nothing is prepared for publishing. Anything outside the plan is a new question: your yes covers the plan and nothing else. And when you accept or return a result on its card in the dashboard and the lead has not recorded it, harnsy reminds the lead.
4. The note. After the posts have had time to collect numbers, the next round reads them. What was learned goes into a note the next round starts from. Since 0.10.0 harnsy keeps this as role memory: the role proposes a lesson, the lead or you approve it, and the next holder of the role reads it when it starts. The new plan must name the one thing it changes and why. That is what makes it a loop and not a weekly chore.
Build your own in five steps
- Pick a job that repeats weekly and has a result you can read.
- Write the instruction as a card: what to read, what to produce, who gets it.
- Put one schedule on the role that produces it.
- Decide the question: what you answer, in how few words, and what no answer means. Let silence mean that nothing goes out.
- Say how the result is read and when, and let the next round start from a lesson and name one change.
What we do not know yet
Whether three posts a week is the right pace, whether one question a week holds when a week brings surprises, and what the numbers will say. When there are weeks to count, we will write again.
Telegram, Discord and LinkedIn are names of their owners’ products. harnsy is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.
Build your first loop
A schedule, a work item, one question to you and a note: you already have all four in harnsy.
Install harnsyharnsy is not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenCode; their names are theirs.