A Pattern for Running Claude Code on Overnight Unattended Sessions Without Drift

Chain Runner

Run a fixed sequence of skills for N iterations:

bin/skill-chain.py --chain dev-cycle-with-review-looped --loop 10

Each iteration: a dev skill picks the next item from docs/TODO.md, ships it (code + tests + docs in one commit), then a review skill critiques what landed and queues follow-ups in TODO. Standard agent loop made explicit.

Supervisor at Session End

After the loop finishes, a separate skill reads the run's transcripts, evaluates each skill against its stated job, and proposes rewrites to the skill prose itself. With auto-promote on, those rewrites land. Auto-promote off writes them as SKILL.patch.md sidecars for human review.

Single Handoff Contract

Every skill reads docs/SPEC.md (canonical plan) and docs/TODO.md (In flight / Just shipped / Next up) at the start, updates them in the same commit as the code change. No side channels, no second TODO format, no per-skill plan docs. The framework dogfoods this contract on its own development. The contract does most of the drift-killing work.

Additional Features

• Proprietary / transferable split: Skills under skills/framework/ are transferable; each project keeps its proprietary counterpart in .claude/skills/. A sanitization skill checks promotions across that boundary so secrets don't leak.
• Schema validation: bin/validate-frontmatter.py against schema/skill-set.schema.json and schema/skill-chain.schema.json catches malformed skills before a chain run.
• Optional Telegram steering: Status messages at session start, every iteration boundary, every rate-limit pause/resume, and session end. Queue commands back via /cmd that the next iteration drains.
• Overnight chain: Loops until failure, budget cap, or Ctrl-C, with a randomized 5min-2h inter-iteration delay so commit cadence stays human-shaped.

Repo

https://github.com/toadlyBroodle/skill-set