davila7--claude-code-templates/cli-tool/components/loops/engineering/five-minute-maintainer-loop.md

name, description, category, interval, stop-condition, components, tags

name	description	category	interval	stop-condition	components	tags
five-minute-maintainer-loop	Every few minutes while you work, makes one small verified repository improvement — a flaky test, a stale comment, a missing type — one change, one commit.	engineering	5m	You end the session, or there is no safe low-risk improvement left to make this pass.	agent:development-team/test-runner command:git-workflow/commit hook:quality-gates/scope-guard	maintenance hygiene automation loop

Five-Minute Maintainer Loop

Loop Engineering — the /loop verb repeats a task while you are present. This one does continuous, low-risk upkeep on a tight timer while you focus on the real work. Inspired by Peter Steinberger's five-minute maintainer.

🎯 Goal

Every few minutes, make exactly one small, verified improvement to the repo — and let the agent decide what to clean. That judgment is the whole point; nothing is hardcoded.

⏱️ Schedule

Suggested interval: 5m (runs while your session is open).

▶️ Run it

/loop 5m "Make one small, verified repository improvement: a flaky test, a stale comment, a missing type, a dead import. One change, one commit, tests green. Never touch anything risky or architectural. If nothing safe remains, say so and wait."

🔁 Iteration steps

1. Perceive — scan for a small, low-risk improvement opportunity.
2. Reason — confirm it is safe; the scope-guard hook blocks risky/out-of-scope edits.
3. Act — make the single change.
4. Verify — run the suite with test-runner; only proceed if green.
5. Observe — commit with /commit; one change, one commit. Wait for the next tick.

🛑 Stopping condition

You end the session, or there is no safe improvement left this pass (the loop idles rather than inventing risky work).

💰 Budget & guardrails

One change per tick; never refactors or touches production-critical paths. Set a per-session token budget before walking away.

🧩 Referenced components

• agent:development-team/test-runner — verifies each change is green.
• command:git-workflow/commit — one clean commit per improvement.
• hook:quality-gates/scope-guard — blocks risky / out-of-scope edits.

💡 Example

While you build a feature, the loop quietly fixes a flaky timer test, removes a dead import, and adds a missing return type — three tiny green commits — without ever touching the feature you're working on.