Feedback Loop

The feedback loop closes the cycle between verification and implementation. When verification detects failed checks, the feedback module analyzes the causes and suggests corrections.

VERIFY (checks fail) --> FEEDBACK (LLM analysis) --> Suggestions + Spec amendments

---

Basic usage

# Analyze failures and view suggestions
intake feedback specs/my-feature/ -p .

# With an existing verification report
intake feedback specs/my-feature/ --verify-report report.json

# Automatically apply amendments to the spec
intake feedback specs/my-feature/ -p . --apply

# Suggestions formatted for a specific agent
intake feedback specs/my-feature/ -p . --agent-format claude-code

What happens internally

1. If --verify-report is not provided, it runs intake verify first to generate a JSON report
2. Filters checks with fail status
3. Loads the spec (requirements, design, tasks) as context
4. Sends failures + context to the LLM for root cause analysis
5. Generates a FeedbackResult with structured suggestions
6. Displays the suggestions in the terminal (or formats them for an agent)
7. If --apply or feedback.auto_amend_spec, applies the proposed amendments to the spec

---

Output

The command displays in the terminal:

Feedback Analysis
=================

CRITICAL  check-api-tests
  Root cause: API endpoint /users/register not implemented yet
  Fix: Implement POST /users/register in src/api/routes.py
  Affected tasks: Task 2, Task 3
  Amendment: Modify requirements.md section FR-001

MAJOR  check-lint
  Root cause: Missing type hints in new modules
  Fix: Add type annotations to src/api/models.py
  Affected tasks: Task 1

Summary: 2 failures analyzed, 1 critical
Estimated effort: medium
Amendments: 1 proposed (use --apply to apply)

---

Severities

Severity	Meaning
critical	Blocks core functionality. Must be resolved first.
major	Affects important functionality. High priority.
minor	Quality improvement. Can be postponed.

---

Spec amendments

When the analysis identifies that the spec needs adjustments, it proposes a SpecAmendment:

@dataclass
class SpecAmendment:
    target_file: str    # Spec file (e.g.: "requirements.md")
    section: str        # Section (e.g.: "FR-001")
    action: str         # "add", "modify", "remove"
    content: str        # Proposed content

Preview

Without --apply, amendments are shown as proposals:

Proposed amendments:
  [1] MODIFY requirements.md > FR-001
      Current: "Users must register with email"
      Proposed: "Users must register with email and password validation"

Use --apply to apply these amendments.

Automatic application

With --apply or feedback.auto_amend_spec: true:

Applied 1 amendment(s), skipped 0
  [OK] Modified requirements.md > FR-001

Amendments that cannot be applied (section not found, file does not exist) are skipped with an explanatory message.

---

Agent formats

The --agent-format flag formats the suggestions for a specific agent:

Format	Description
generic	Generic Markdown (default)
claude-code	Format optimized for Claude Code
cursor	Format optimized for Cursor

# Save formatted suggestions
intake feedback specs/my-feature/ -p . --agent-format claude-code > feedback.md

---

Configuration

feedback:
  auto_amend_spec: false          # Apply amendments automatically (without --apply)
  max_suggestions: 10             # Maximum suggestions per analysis
  include_code_snippets: true     # Include code snippets in the suggestions

Field	Type	Default	Description
auto_amend_spec	bool	false	If true, applies amendments without needing --apply.
max_suggestions	int	10	Limits the number of LLM suggestions.
include_code_snippets	bool	true	Asks the LLM to include code in the suggestions.

---

Data model

FeedbackResult

@dataclass
class FeedbackResult:
    failures: list[FailureAnalysis]     # Analysis for each failed check
    summary: str                        # General summary
    estimated_effort: str               # "small", "medium", "large"
    total_cost: float                   # LLM analysis cost (USD)

    @property
    def amendment_count(self) -> int: ...   # Proposed amendments

    @property
    def critical_count(self) -> int: ...   # Critical failures

FailureAnalysis

@dataclass
class FailureAnalysis:
    check_name: str                         # Name of the failed check
    root_cause: str                         # Identified root cause
    suggestion: str                         # Correction suggestion
    category: str = "implementation_gap"    # Failure category
    severity: str = "major"                 # critical | major | minor
    affected_tasks: list[str] = []          # Affected tasks
    spec_amendment: SpecAmendment | None = None  # Proposed amendment

SpecUpdater

class SpecUpdater:
    def preview(result: FeedbackResult) -> list[AmendmentPreview]: ...
    def apply(result: FeedbackResult) -> ApplyResult: ...

• preview() returns previews without modifying files
• apply() modifies the spec files and returns counts

---

Programmatic usage

from intake.feedback import FeedbackAnalyzer, SuggestionFormatter, SpecUpdater
from intake.config.schema import IntakeConfig
from intake.llm.adapter import LLMAdapter

# Analyze
analyzer = FeedbackAnalyzer(config=IntakeConfig(), llm=llm_adapter)
result = await analyzer.analyze(
    verify_report=report_json,
    spec_dir="specs/my-feature/",
)

# Format suggestions
formatter = SuggestionFormatter()
markdown = formatter.format(result, agent_format="claude-code")

# Apply amendments
updater = SpecUpdater(spec_dir="specs/my-feature/")
previews = updater.preview(result)
apply_result = updater.apply(result)

---

Costs

The feedback loop makes one LLM call per analysis. The cost depends on the spec size and the number of failed checks:

Scenario	Approximate cost
Few failures, small spec	~$0.01-0.03
Many failures, medium spec	~$0.03-0.10
Large spec + enterprise	~$0.10-0.20

The cost is reported in FeedbackResult.total_cost.