The hard part isn't writing code. It's knowing when to move on.

An agent that says "done" when it isn't will quietly wreck a five-task run — which is why people hover, and why nothing is truly automated. So the loop below is deliberately boring: a plain checkbox file as the only source of truth, completion judged on the exact line the agent claimed, and a defined way out of every stall. Boring is what lets you close the laptop. Identical behaviour in the extension, the CLI and the desktop app.

1

Keep a TODO.md with a ## Todo section of - [ ] checkboxes.

2

Start the loop. AutoAIDev picks the first unchecked task and marks it [~] in progress.

3

The task text is dispatched to your provider CLI — Claude, Grok, Copilot or OpenCode.

4

It watches that exact line — by number, not by text — until the agent writes [x] with a date.

5

Next task. When the list empties it polls — add a line and work resumes on its own.

Task status model

[ ]

Pending

Waiting in the queue.

[~]

In progress

Dispatched; the loop is watching that line.

[x]

Done

Agent checked it off with a completion date.

[!]

Timed out / rate-limited

Reset to [ ]; the loop pauses until the parsed reset time, then retries.

providers: claude · grok · copilot · opencode
default timeout: 30 min per task
resume: on by default

TODO.md

## Todo

- [x] 2026-08-01 build login page

- [~] refactor auth module

- [ ] add password reset flow

- [ ] write integration tests

One file — the only source of truth the loop reads and writes.

          [ ] pending
          [~] in progress
          [x] done
          [!] retried
        

Robustness

Completion it cannot fake. Done is keyed to the exact line the loop claimed — not to matching text — so a reworded or reshuffled list never tricks it into moving on early.

A way out of every stall. Anything still thinking after 30 minutes is retried or set aside. One bad task never holds the whole list hostage.

Patience, handled for you. Hit a rate limit and the task returns to [ ] while the loop sleeps until the quota resets — then carries on exactly where it stopped. You find out afterwards, not at 2am.

Next: the loop is the same everywhere — choose where you want to watch it happen.

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