The biggest shift in building AI features is realising a prompt is not a system. A capable feature is a few small loops composed well: plan, execute, evaluate, remember, improve, each with one job and a clear stop condition. This skill is my design reference for that.
Four questions before writing any prompt: what is the concrete stop condition, which two or three loop patterns does this feature actually need, what is the iteration cap and escalation rule, and what persists between runs. No stop condition means you have a single shot, not a loop. A generator marking its own homework means you have vibes, not evaluation.
The catalogue covers ten patterns from retry through multi agent, but the skill's real opinion is restraint: most features need two or three, and human in the loop is not optional for anything irreversible. This thinking shaped the AI Coach in VitalDial and the MCP surface in Drumlit.