Starter kits

changelog-drafter — the merge-to-draft loop

Drafts changelog entries so they never pile up unwritten. Daily, or right before a release tag, it reads every merged PR since the last beat and writes…

Drafts changelog entries so they never pile up unwritten. Daily, or right before a release tag, it reads every merged PR since the last beat and writes one draft line per PR — it never touches CHANGELOG.md itself; the release manager reads the draft before tagging.

Category: C · Release · Heartbeat: schedule/tag (daily or on a release-tag event) · Level: L1 (report-only — drafts, never commits) · Cost: Low

Quickstart

1. Read LOOP.md — the six parts, the prompt, the limits, the three stops.
2. changelog-drafter-state.md is your spine — already committed with an
   empty last-processed-PR mark.
3. Claude Code: point a daily Routine (or a release-tag event trigger) at
   .claude/skills/loop-task/SKILL.md. OpenCode: rename
   opencode.json.example → opencode.json, add the AGENTS.md line, wire
   skills/loop-task.md into a cron + wrapper script.
4. Rehearse once, by hand, before the schedule ever fires:
   "Run the changelog-drafter skill now, exactly as the schedule would."
5. Grade the rehearsal with the loop-verifier agent — it checks every merged
   PR number since the mark shows up in the draft. PASS → arm the schedule.
   FAIL → fix the skill, never the draft.

What's in this kit

File	Role
`LOOP.md`	the definition — six parts, prompt, limits, ownership, three stops
`changelog-drafter-state.md`	the spine — last-processed PR number, escalated unprocessable PRs
`loop-budget.md`	caps: 10 runs/day, 80k tokens/day, 80% tripwire
`loop-constraints.md`	the constitution — never writes `CHANGELOG.md`, escalates instead of retrying
`loop-run-log.md`	append-only, one line per beat
`.claude/skills/loop-task/SKILL.md`	the procedure (Claude Code)
`.claude/agents/loop-verifier.md`	the read-only reviewer — checks every merged PR is covered
`opencode.json.example` · `skills/loop-task.md`	the OpenCode twin — same skill text, schedule/tag heartbeat

Loop Ready checklist

Provable success condition — every merged PR since the last mark has a draft line
Run limit — 10/day
Spine written first, committed empty
Report-only (L1) start — drafts to a file, never commits to CHANGELOG.md
Human gate placed — the release manager reads the draft before tagging
One log line per beat, no silent runs
Kill switch — loop-pause-all in loop-budget.md

How this relates to the course

This kit is a direct application of the course's own "Worked in 90 seconds" A–F example, which uses this exact task — "changelog entries pile up unwritten" — to demonstrate the six-move method end to end. The body (CHANGELOG.md-adjacent only), spine (last-processed PR number), checker (a script: does every merged PR number show up?), gate (the release manager, before tagging), the 10/day limit, and the stuck-PR escalation rule are all taken directly from that worked example. This kit adapts its event-per-merge trigger to the catalog's own schedule/tag heartbeat (§15A) — the same design, a different clock.

Source: Panaversity's Loop Engineering: A Crash Course (S1). Full attribution: resources/sources.md.