06-28
The 5 Levels of Loop Design: From Prompting to Autonomous Agents
The creator of Claude Code says he no longer writes prompts—loops prompt it instead. This post introduces a 5-level progression of human-AI workflow: from Level 1 (single-turn prompting), through Level 2 (manual loop of do-check-correct), Level 3 (verified loop with separate judges for 'done'), Level 4 (self-running loop using /goal command with guardrails), to Level 5 (autonomous systems where loops self-start, run in parallel, and persist lessons into a skill base). Each level comes with a tell and a concrete next step. For developers who still feel they are 'babysitting' their AI agents.