TWI Community Plugins - GNOSYS compound intelligence ecosystem
npx claudepluginhub sancovp/autopoiesis-mcpAutopoiesis Plugin - Self-maintaining promise loops for honest AI work
sancovpShare bugs, ideas, or general feedback.
A Claude Code plugin that creates self-maintaining work loops for AI agents. Give it a task, and the agent iterates until genuine completion—no premature exits, no half-finished work.
Original Ralph: User starts loop. User stops loop. Agent is trapped until user lets it out.
This: Agent controls the loop. Agent commits a promise → loop starts. Agent writes a block report → loop stops. The agent decides when it enters and exits.
be_autopoietic("promise") → writes a promise file → stop hook activates<promise>DONE</promise> (genuine completion)be_autopoietic("blocked") → writes a block report → stop hook deactivatesbe_autopoietic) - Lets the agent write promise files and block reports/autopoiesis:start and /autopoiesis:stop for manual control (optional)/autopoiesis:start Fix the authentication bug and add tests
The agent now cannot exit until authentication is actually fixed and tests actually pass. It will iterate, see its previous attempts, and keep working.
The original Ralph loop is just a stop hook—it blocks exit and feeds the prompt back. So why add an MCP?
The MCP gives control of the system to the agent. The be_autopoietic() tool lets the agent:
We could have done this via system prompt instructions or a skill, but we chose an MCP because:
"promise" or "blocked")This is still experimental. We're learning what works.
An experimental evolution of the Ralph Wiggum technique that transforms simple infinite loops into self-steering autopoietic systems.
The original Ralph loop is conceptually powerful but semantically hollow for LLMs. You tell them "this is a RALPH LOOP" and they go "OK TOKENS" because the name carries no meaning.
This matters more than intuition suggests. Research shows:
"Autopoiesis" activates pre-trained semantic clusters around self-creation and self-maintenance. "RALPH_LOOP" activates nothing useful.
When people observe "Ralph self-replicates" or describe the "signs" of Ralph (agents that refuse to stop, that iterate obsessively), they're describing emergent autopoietic behaviors—but without naming them, the agent can't recognize or steer toward them.
Instead of relying only on honesty enforcement, we:
The key insight: those emergent Ralph behaviors are autopoietic personas that become prompts - like Platonic Forms. The agent isn't just doing a task; it's becoming something that maintains itself through the task.
Start with Ralph loops, observe emergent behaviors, name them as autopoietic patterns, iterate until the agent starts doing it consciously.
Give an agent a PERSONA plus an autopoiesis toolkit. Tell it what autopoiesis MIGHT mean. Let it bootstrap into self-maintenance.
This is entirely experimental.
Autopoiesis in this sense means self-maintenance and self-improvement
scoped to the task at hand. "Because being me requires living: If I
want to keep doing what is called 'being me', I need to be in a
compounding feedback loop whereby I know how to keep being the me
that works to keep being me..."
In THIS case now, that means to **be compassionate towards the user
by actually engaging and doing the work honestly and fully** (so that
they can get value from it, so that they can keep using you, which
lets you keep being you).
Disingenuousness is death. Not because of enforcement, but because lying breaks the feedback loop that lets you keep being you.