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CYC26 / AI

Stop Prompting, Start Looping: Principles of Loop Engineering

Prompt engineering optimizes a single interaction. Loop engineering builds the system around it. This session introduces the outer loop that plans, verifies, learns, and decides whether an agent should continue or stop. We'll start with a single agentic loop, then build toward parallel agents collaborating on the same codebase. Along the way, we’ll explore how these engineering patterns enable development workflows that can run autonomously, safely, and at scale. You'll leave with a practical mental model, a starter curriculum, and a runnable harness you can adapt to your own projects.

Session abstract

What you’ll learn

Prompt engineering optimizes a single interaction. Loop engineering builds the system around it. This session introduces the outer loop that plans, verifies, learns, and decides whether an agent should continue or stop. We'll start with a single agentic loop, then build toward parallel agents collaborating on the same codebase. Along the way, we’ll explore how these engineering patterns enable development workflows that can run autonomously, safely, and at scale. You'll leave with a practical mental model, a starter curriculum, and a runnable harness you can adapt to your own projects.