5 ms·

Can someone explain what this is to my n00b brain. I don't get what claude-cli is missing that this adds in?

by rc_kas 6mo ago

transitorykris 6mo ago
Maybe not adds in, but wraps around. You could accomplish much of this with fairly simply bash scripts.
- esperent 6mo ago
  You could accomplish all of it with claude -p (headless mode).
  - brcmthrowaway 6mo ago
    Indeed. Where are people finding time for these sort of projects.
    - injidup 6mo ago
      They bootstrap a workflow with a prompt then build an orchestrator off that then prompt it to be converted to an opencode plugin and then prompt a website to be generated advertising it and then prompt a tool that reviews hacker news feedback and automatically incorporates feedback into next generation of the tool. At the end of the week they go to their manager and complain they are out of tokens for the actual job they are being paid for.
      - staticvar 6mo ago
        Haha, not far off. Only difference is I'm not spending my tokens at work. I use this on a side project video game that I'm developing.
  - transitorykris 6mo ago
    Admittedly I might be missing a flag or two with claude, but how are multiple loops and comparisons of solutions done with just headless mode?
    - esperent 6mo ago
      Via skills.
    - loveparade 6mo ago
      It's just a prompt.
    - hombre_fatal 6mo ago
      You have building blocks like "--resume <sessionId>" and "--fork-session". For example, one thing you can do is curate the context of an "immutable" conversation and then reuse it as a base context for other prompts.
beshrkayali 6mo ago
IMO the raw Claude CLI is great for one-off interactive sessions, but as soon as you want repeatable multi-step workflows you’re either copy-pasting prompts forever or hacking your own solution manually. That’s exactly the gap these tools fill. My take on a solution for this is https://ossature.dev https://ossature.dev — .smd spec markdown files + ossature audit / build that gives you DAG orchestration, SHA-traced increments, and tiny focused contexts.
- eloisius 6mo ago
  Isn’t a repeatable, multi-step workflow exactly what a script or Makefile does?
  - beshrkayali 6mo ago
    Yeah bash scripts start clean but the sprawl kicks in quick as the workflow and project becomes more complex. Prompts get copied, deps turn manual, and maintenance of your workflow itself becomes the chore. Ossature swaps that for structured SMDs and optional AMDs. Multiple specs build a clean DAG that drops into an editable plan.toml so everything stays traceable without the mess. Feel free to check the example projects on https://github.com/ossature/ossature-examples https://github.com/ossature/ossature-examples
    - wiseowise 6mo ago
      > Yeah bash scripts start clean but the sprawl kicks in quick as the workflow and project becomes more complex. Then just use Python.
      - beshrkayali 6mo ago
        That’s what Ossature is :)
  - hrmtst93837 6mo ago
    [flagged]
- 6mo ago
sghiassy 6mo ago
As a prerequisite you’d want to understand the purpose of Ralph Wiggum Loops But in general this is meta to the CLI agent. So if you were to use the CLI to perform a review of some code. This tool would allow you to loop the output of the code review 5 times onto itself.
- exolab 6mo ago
  > So if you were to use the CLI to perform a review of some code. This tool would allow you to loop the output of the code review 5 times onto itself. Claude already does that if you ask nicely.
  - staticvar 6mo ago
    To a certain extent, yes it does! For my cases, I'm often running 3 parallel implementations that get 10 to 20 iterations deep, and then Claude has to sort out the pros and cons of the options and also take the best bits of each. Easy to hit the context window with Claude just running those on its own, so giving `/cook` to Claude, it can offload a bit more via cook and stay higher level.
niobe 6mo ago
This is for co-ordinating instances of Claude or Codex, not something you do inside each instance.
- rjcorwin 6mo ago
  Claude and Codex can also use the cook command to coordinate runs of other agents. This is similar to how you can describe a workflow to them of how to use subagents, and they'll try, but this gives them a reliable deterministic way to run those agents. An added benefit of having Claude/Codex/etc. use cook directly is that they are really good at analyzing the traces of what is happening inside of cook and after the fact.

Can someone explain what this is to my n00b brain. I don't get what claude-cli is missing that this adds in?

by rc_kas 6mo ago

Can someone explain what this is to my n00b brain. I don't get what claude-cli is missing that this adds in?

transitorykris 6mo ago

Maybe not adds in, but wraps around. You could accomplish much of this with fairly simply bash scripts.

esperent 6mo ago
You could accomplish all of it with claude -p (headless mode).
- brcmthrowaway 6mo ago
  Indeed. Where are people finding time for these sort of projects.
  - injidup 6mo ago
    They bootstrap a workflow with a prompt then build an orchestrator off that then prompt it to be converted to an opencode plugin and then prompt a website to be generated advertising it and then prompt a tool that reviews hacker news feedback and automatically incorporates feedback into next generation of the tool. At the end of the week they go to their manager and complain they are out of tokens for the actual job they are being paid for.
    - staticvar 6mo ago
      Haha, not far off. Only difference is I'm not spending my tokens at work. I use this on a side project video game that I'm developing.
- transitorykris 6mo ago
  Admittedly I might be missing a flag or two with claude, but how are multiple loops and comparisons of solutions done with just headless mode?
  - esperent 6mo ago
    Via skills.
  - loveparade 6mo ago
    It's just a prompt.
  - hombre_fatal 6mo ago
    You have building blocks like "--resume <sessionId>" and "--fork-session". For example, one thing you can do is curate the context of an "immutable" conversation and then reuse it as a base context for other prompts.

beshrkayali 6mo ago

IMO the raw Claude CLI is great for one-off interactive sessions, but as soon as you want repeatable multi-step workflows you’re either copy-pasting prompts forever or hacking your own solution manually. That’s exactly the gap these tools fill. My take on a solution for this is https://ossature.dev https://ossature.dev — .smd spec markdown files + ossature audit / build that gives you DAG orchestration, SHA-traced increments, and tiny focused contexts.

eloisius 6mo ago
Isn’t a repeatable, multi-step workflow exactly what a script or Makefile does?
- beshrkayali 6mo ago
  Yeah bash scripts start clean but the sprawl kicks in quick as the workflow and project becomes more complex. Prompts get copied, deps turn manual, and maintenance of your workflow itself becomes the chore. Ossature swaps that for structured SMDs and optional AMDs. Multiple specs build a clean DAG that drops into an editable plan.toml so everything stays traceable without the mess. Feel free to check the example projects on https://github.com/ossature/ossature-examples https://github.com/ossature/ossature-examples
  - wiseowise 6mo ago
    > Yeah bash scripts start clean but the sprawl kicks in quick as the workflow and project becomes more complex. Then just use Python.
    - beshrkayali 6mo ago
      That’s what Ossature is :)
- hrmtst93837 6mo ago
  [flagged]
6mo ago

sghiassy 6mo ago

As a prerequisite you’d want to understand the purpose of Ralph Wiggum Loops But in general this is meta to the CLI agent. So if you were to use the CLI to perform a review of some code. This tool would allow you to loop the output of the code review 5 times onto itself.

exolab 6mo ago
> So if you were to use the CLI to perform a review of some code. This tool would allow you to loop the output of the code review 5 times onto itself. Claude already does that if you ask nicely.
- staticvar 6mo ago
  To a certain extent, yes it does! For my cases, I'm often running 3 parallel implementations that get 10 to 20 iterations deep, and then Claude has to sort out the pros and cons of the options and also take the best bits of each. Easy to hit the context window with Claude just running those on its own, so giving `/cook` to Claude, it can offload a bit more via cook and stay higher level.

niobe 6mo ago

This is for co-ordinating instances of Claude or Codex, not something you do inside each instance.

rjcorwin 6mo ago
Claude and Codex can also use the cook command to coordinate runs of other agents. This is similar to how you can describe a workflow to them of how to use subagents, and they'll try, but this gives them a reliable deterministic way to run those agents. An added benefit of having Claude/Codex/etc. use cook directly is that they are really good at analyzing the traces of what is happening inside of cook and after the fact.