pi-loop

Re-sends one prompt inside the current pi session on a schedule: an interval or a cron expression.

Install

pi install npm:@pwguler/pi-loop

Or from GitHub: pi install git:github.com/pwguler/pi-loop. Start or reload pi, then /loop is available.

Usage

/loop                                    the roster: one row per loop
/loop list                               the same roster
/loop [flags] <text with an interval phrase> [flags]
/loop [flags] <cron expression> <prompt> [flags]
/loop stop <name>
/loop pause <name>
/loop resume <name>

/loop 5m check the build
/loop check the build hourly
/loop every 30 minutes review the open PRs
/loop run the smoke test every 1h30m --name smoke --max 6
/loop every 50 min @prompt.md
/loop 0 9 * * 1-5 summarize the overnight CI failures

• Interval. The phrase is cut out of the text, and the rest is the prompt. Forms include 5m, 2 hours, 1d, 1h30m, hourly, daily, and every 30 minutes; the minimum is 1m. At the head of the text any form counts. Elsewhere only an every/each phrase counts; at the tail, so do hourly, daily, and a compact form such as 5m. So summarize the day has no interval.
• Cron. crontab's five fields (minute, hour, day of month, month, day of week), at the head of the text after any flags. A field takes *, a value, a range, a list, or a step such as */15. Month and weekday also take names such as jan and mon. When neither day field starts with *, a day that matches either one counts; otherwise a day must match both.
• Flags. --name <n>, --max <n> (remove the loop after its n-th fire), and --until <ISO|HH:mm> (remove it at that time; HH:mm is the next such local time). Flags go at the head or the tail, never inside the prompt.
• File prompt. A prompt that is one @path token reads that file, relative to the cwd, at every fire.
• Name. Without --name, in a session with a model, an @path file or a short prompt names the loop. Otherwise the model picks a short name, in a side request that adds nothing to the conversation. With no model or no usable name, the name is loop-<k>.
• Roster. In the TUI, /loop opens the roster below the editor. Its header names the keys for the selected loop: p pause or r resume, x stop (it asks first), Enter for the detail panel, Esc to go back.

How loops fire

• Nothing fires on create. A loop fires at the points of a fixed grid on the local clock: 1h at every HH:00, 15m at :00, :15, :30, and :45, daily at 00:00. A cron loop fires at the minutes its expression matches.
• A fire that comes due while the agent is busy is queued behind the running turn. Each loop keeps at most one fire waiting: until the agent settles, its further grid points are skipped. A skip sends nothing and does not count toward --max.
• Pause keeps the counter. Resume waits for the next grid point.
• While loops exist, a status line below the editor shows the count and the next due loop.

State

Loops live in <cwd>/.pi-loop/ and survive a restart. Only one TUI session in a cwd fires them. Another TUI session in that cwd shows owned by pid <n>, and takes over once that process is gone. Grid points that passed while pi was down do not fire.