Claude Code /loop - Recurring Autonomous Workflows That Actually Work

Claude Code just got a /loop command. Here are the loops I’m actually running - and one I’ve been running as a cron job long before /loop existed.

For context: Travis, my AI assistant, is a cron-triggered Claude session. Every few hours it checks for GitHub issues, reviews recent commits, summarizes PRs waiting on me, and drops updates into Telegram. I built this manually - shell scripts, crontabs, the works - before any of it was native to Claude Code. So when /loop shipped, I recognized it immediately: this is the in-session version of what Travis does.

What /loop Actually Does

The syntax is simple:

/loop 5m "check if the Vite build succeeded and summarize new errors"

It runs the prompt immediately, then repeats on the interval. No delay, no scheduling - the first iteration fires right now. It’s session-scoped, capped at 50 tasks per loop, and auto-expires after 3 days.

That last part is the gotcha. I’ll come back to it.

The Loops I’m Running

Build monitoring:

/loop 5m "check if the Vite build succeeded and summarize new errors"

I keep this going while refactoring. CI runs in the background, Claude gives me a digest every 5 minutes. Better than tab-switching to check the build status.

Scheduled code reviews:

/loop 15m /review

While I’m heads-down writing code, Claude queues review notes on changed files. Not blocking, just accumulating. Pairs well with the workflow I wrote about here.

Issue triage:

/loop 30m "check for new GitHub issues, label them, and add a comment with a proposed resolution"

This is closest to what Travis does. New issues come in, get triaged, labeled, and given a first-pass response - without me touching GitHub. I’ve been doing this with cron for months. /loop makes it one command during an active session.

The Honest Limitation

Loops die when you close the session.

That’s the thing. /loop is not cron. It’s in-session monitoring - useful while you’re actively working, but it doesn’t outlive the terminal tab. The 3-day expiry is theoretical; in practice, most loops die within a few hours when you close Claude Code.

For anything that needs to run overnight, on weekends, or across sessions - you need actual cron. That’s not a knock on /loop; it’s just its honest scope. In-session loops are great for “while I’m on this PR, watch CI.” They’re not great for “send me a morning standup briefing every day at 9am.”

For tasks that need to outlive your Claude Code session, you still need cron. But for in-session monitoring, /loop is now my default.