alp:autoresearch

alp:autoresearch — Autonomous Optimization Loop

Constraint + Mechanical Metric + Fast Verification = Autonomous Improvement

When to Use

• Improve a measurable metric (test coverage, bundle size, ESLint errors, Lighthouse score, etc.)
• Autonomous execution over N iterations without manual intervention
• Git-tracked experiments where you want rollback on regression
• Exploring a search space of code changes with consistent evaluation

When NOT to Use

Situation	Better Tool
Subjective goals ("make it cleaner")	alp:cook
Bug fixing with known root cause	alp:fix or alp:debug
One-shot tasks, no repetition needed	alp:cook
No mechanical metric to measure progress	alp:cook --interactive
Files outside a defined scope	manual approach

Configuration Format

Parsed from user message. Missing required fields trigger a batched AskUserQuestion.

Required

Field	Description	Example
Goal	Human description of what to improve	"Increase test coverage in src/utils"
Scope	Glob pattern(s) for editable files	"src/utils/**/*.ts"
Verify	Shell command that outputs a single number	"npx jest --coverage --json | jq '.coverageMap | .. | .s? | to_entries | map(.value) | (map(select(.>0)) | length) / length * 100' | tail -1"

Optional

Field	Default	Description
Guard	none	Regression check command (exit 0 = pass)
Iterations	10	Maximum iterations to run
Noise	medium	Tolerance for metric variance: low / medium / high
Min-Delta	0	Minimum improvement to count as progress
Direction	higher	Whether higher or lower metric value is better

Interactive Setup

When required fields are missing, ask all at once:

AskUserQuestion({
  questions: [
    { question: "What metric do you want to improve? (e.g. 'test coverage in src/utils')", field: "Goal" },
    { question: "Which files may be edited? (glob, e.g. 'src/utils/**/*.ts')", field: "Scope" },
    { question: "Verify command — must print a single number to stdout", field: "Verify" },
    { question: "Guard command for regression check? (optional, press Enter to skip)", field: "Guard" }
  ]
})

Core Protocol

See references/autonomous-loop-protocol.md for the full 8-phase specification.

Key invariants:

• ONE atomic change per iteration — atomicity test: can you describe it in one sentence without "and"?
• Commit BEFORE verify — git is memory, not a safety net
• Guard files are read-only — never modify files in guard command's scope
• Prefer git revert over git reset — preserve history

Results Logging

Each iteration appends a TSV line to loop-results.tsv in the working directory:

iteration	commit	metric	delta	status	description
0	a1b2c3d	80.0	-	baseline	initial measurement
1	e4f5a6b	82.4	+2.4	keep	add null checks to parser.ts
2	-	81.9	-0.5	discard	extract helper function

See references/autonomous-loop-protocol.md — Phase 7 for full schema.

Stuck Detection

Condition	Action
5 consecutive discards	Analyze patterns → shift strategy (different files, different approach)
10 consecutive discards	STOP — report findings, surface to user

Example Invocations

1. Increase test coverage

/alp:autoresearch
Goal: Increase test coverage in src/utils from ~60% to 80%
Scope: src/utils/**/*.ts, tests/utils/**/*.test.ts
Verify: npx jest tests/utils --coverage --coverageReporters=json-summary 2>/dev/null | node -e "const d=require('./coverage-summary.json');console.log(d.total.lines.pct)"
Guard: npx tsc --noEmit && npx jest --passWithNoTests
Iterations: 15
Direction: higher

2. Reduce bundle size

/alp:autoresearch
Goal: Reduce main bundle size below 200KB
Scope: src/**/*.ts, src/**/*.tsx
Verify: npx vite build 2>/dev/null | grep "dist/index" | awk '{print $2}' | sed 's/kB//'
Guard: npx tsc --noEmit
Direction: lower
Min-Delta: 0.5

3. Eliminate ESLint errors

/alp:autoresearch
Goal: Drive ESLint error count to zero in src/api
Scope: src/api/**/*.ts
Verify: npx eslint src/api --format=json 2>/dev/null | node -e "const r=require('/dev/stdin');console.log(r.reduce((a,f)=>a+f.errorCount,0))" || echo 999
Direction: lower
Iterations: 20

Limitations (Honest)

• Cannot optimize subjective or aesthetic goals
• Cannot modify files outside the declared Scope
• Cannot modify files referenced by the Guard command
• Cannot guarantee improvement — some metrics have hard ceilings
• Requires a git repository with a clean working tree before starting
• Verify command must complete in < 30 seconds (otherwise loop is impractical)
• Does not parallelize iterations — sequential by design (each iteration learns from the last)

References

• references/autonomous-loop-protocol.md — Full 8-phase loop spec, decision matrix, anti-patterns
• references/git-memory-pattern.md — Git as cross-iteration memory, revert vs reset, commit conventions
• references/guard-and-noise.md — Guard pattern for regression prevention, noise-aware verification
• references/results-logging.md — TSV format spec, progressive summaries
• references/metric-library.md — Common verify commands by domain