Loops in the loop

This clock renders one real engineering mission. A human steered a Claude Code maestro through three days of work, weighing in at the moments that mattered and letting the rest run on its own.

The maestro dispatched 71 subagents across 19 workstreams in about 15 active hours spread over those three days: planning, building, reviewing and shipping, with the human stepping in 36 times to steer or approve.

The claim behind the picture: reliable agent-driven software comes from loops nested inside loops — the human and the maestro, the maestro's own work loops, an execute → judge → fix → re-judge cycle inside every workstream, and every agent's own loop of tool calls.

Position around the clock is mission progress — one notch per completed iteration, 146 in all — never wall-clock time.

Concentric loop clock of the whole mission on the left, 3840 by 2160, with a grid of 19 workstream loops on the right. Mission progress runs clockwise from the top, one notch per completed iteration. — Full resolution: 3840 × 2160

On the right, each of the 19 workstreams is redrawn as its own complete loop, from its first dispatch to its last agent finishing. Its mini-clock locator shows where that workstream sits on the big clock.

How to read it

One wedge of the clock, rim at top (2×)

Enlarged wedge of the clock, rotated so the rim is at the top

One workstream, redrawn as its own loop (2×)

Enlarged small multiple of one workstream, showing it as its own complete loop

Key

Four loop levels

1 · Human ↔ maestro. Each petal leaving the outer ring and returning is one human turn.Large filled = a steering input. Small hollow = a go-ahead gate.

2 · Maestro. A pink coil is one work episode; each loop is one iteration, drawn on the notch where it completed.The tall coil threading the petals is the planning conversation: one question loop between each pair of answers. Bold = a merge-and-deploy step.

3 · Workstream. A rejection curl leaves the judge’s verdict, sweeps back (counter-clockwise) under the work it reviewed, and turns forward into the fix.Consecutive rejections nest as concentric curls.

4 · Agent. Each agent is an arc wound with a tool coil.More turns means a longer run of tool calls.

Role (coil colour)

Model tier (coil stroke)

Opus: heavy stroke

Sonnet: medium stroke

Haiku: dashed stroke

Verdicts (shape + colour)

Reject: × in a circle, red curl

Findings: ! in a circle, orange curl

Pass: ✓ in a circle, no curl

Maestro marks

Inward notch = agent dispatched; outward notch = agent returnedFine pink rug = the maestro’s 290 direct tool calls

Dashed pink drop = mid-flight course correction sent to a running agent

Pink star = the maestro stepped in: to finish, dictate a fix, or retry

Faint dotted radial = a cross-workstream feed (one band’s agent drawing on another’s work)

Bands and multiples

Band glyph: ■ Primary repo · ◆ Service · ● Satellite repo · ▲ Scouts

Locator. A miniature clock; the bright wedge shows where that workstream sits on the big clock, by angle and by band depth.

Core. The maestro; the closed circle and the arrow at the top of the outer ring mark the mission loop closing.

Scale

One coil loop = 40 tool callsRounded up (minimum one loop): an agent with 150 calls has 4 loops.

One notch = one completed iteration

Workstream index

	Workstream	Type	Agents	Tool calls	Rejection loops	PRs	Loop story