Loops

A loop runs skills in order and stops at a gate before anything moves on. The cheaper the mistake, the more a script decides; the harder it is to undo, the more it waits for you. Five cover the lifecycle; ship-a-draft wraps any generator. See them all on one page in the operating model, or read why loops.

• discover

  Take raw signal — interviews, journeys, a strategy question — to a requirement a human has ratified, so design starts from an agreed problem rather than an assumed one.

  Ratify: you decide

• design

  Take a ratified requirement to a recorded architectural decision — constraints, structure, diagrams, threats, then a panel that must agree before the decision is written down.

  Ratify: a review panel decides

• build

  Take an agreed requirement to merged code through a capped generate-verify-gate loop, with a mechanical gate that decides and a human who owns the merge.

  Verify: a script decides · Decide: you decide

• release

  Take merged code to live users through a planned, reversible rollout — plan the phases and the rollback, judge readiness on evidence, draft the release notes, then a human makes the go/no-go call.

  Ready: a review panel decides · Go: you decide

• operate

  Take a shipped service through detection, response, and learning — instrument it, write the runbook, communicate the incident, then feed the postmortem's deltas back into the runbook.

  Learn: you decide

• ship-a-draft wrapper

  Take raw mess to a stakeholder-ready artifact by wrapping any skilldrop generator in the two passes either side of it — structured intake before, critique and machine-residue scrub after.

  Critique: a review panel decides

• apply

  Take one job posting and one resume to an application ready to send — an honest fit check, a tailored resume, a cover letter and the answers to the application form — with the candidate deciding whether to apply before any writing, and confirming every claim is true before anything is sent.

  Fit: you decide · Confirm: you decide

• comply

  Take a change that carries risk (a launch, a new vendor, a new use of personal data) to a risk position its owner has signed: a risk register scored inherent and residual, a DPIA when personal data is processed, the evidence behind every control the ratings rely on, a script that checks the register, and a sign-off only the named owner can give.

  Check: a script decides · Sign-off: you decide

• measure

  Take a dashboard request to a spec a BI developer can build on numbers people can defend: the decision it serves and one chart per question, every metric defined, the SQL behind each metric reviewed for the bugs that quietly inflate a figure, and the metric owner's sign-off on each definition before anything is built.

  Review: a review panel decides · Sign-off: you decide

• modernize

  Replace or rewrite a legacy component without changing what it does: orient in the old code, plan the restructuring and the move, record the old system's behaviour before anything is rebuilt, rebuild in small steps, prove the new one gives the same results on the recordings, and cut over only when a person accepts the evidence.

  Prove: a script decides · Cutover: you decide

• research

  Take a question that turns on why something happened to an answer the evidence can carry: a plan tied to the decision it serves, a synthesis of the sources with every claim cited, and rival explanations ranked by how little evidence contradicts them, with a gate that sends the work back for the observation that would tell the leaders apart.

  Compare: a review panel decides