Enable Patterns

Enabling Patterns creates a scheduled Loop automation that investigates your project and records what it finds. This page covers turning it on, tuning it, and adding focused automations alongside it.

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Before you start

Patterns runs Loop against your project on a schedule, so two things need to be in place first:

• A way to pay for inference. Patterns runs on Loop’s GPT-5.6 models. By default these are Braintrust’s built-in models, which draw down your organization’s monthly model credits and need no setup. On the Starter plan, they require at least one organization owner with a work email address, or a payment method on file. See Requirements. To run Patterns on your own key, or to keep it running once your credits are exhausted, configure an OpenAI-compatible AI provider for your organization or project.
• Permission to create automations in the project. Members of the Owners and Engineers permission groups have this by default. Enable patterns is shown to everyone, so without permission you’ll see an error when you click it rather than a hidden button.

If you want to choose a Slack notification channel while enabling, connect a Slack workspace first. Otherwise the picker doesn’t appear, and you can add a destination later instead.

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Enable pattern discovery

1. Go to Patterns and click Enable patterns. Once Patterns is on, this button becomes Settings.
2. In the Introducing Patterns dialog, optionally choose a Slack workspace and channel to be notified in when Loop finds patterns.
3. Click Enable patterns to confirm.

Braintrust creates a Pattern discovery automation that runs at 9:00 AM on weekdays in your default timezone, queries the last 30 days by default, and has permission to create and update patterns. It runs a default instruction that tells Loop what to look for, which you can edit later. See Tune the automation. Braintrust then queues an initial run immediately, so you don’t wait for the first scheduled one. While a run is in progress, the page shows an Analyzing traces… indicator. Patterns appear as the run finishes.

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Tune the automation

The default automation is an ordinary Loop automation, so you can change its instruction, schedule, model, query range, and destinations at any time. To edit it, either click Settings on the Patterns page and select the automation, or go to Settings > Automations. The fields worth revisiting first:

• Frequency. How often the run happens. A project with steady traffic rarely needs more than daily.
• Default query range. How much recent data each run inspects. Each run inspects the full range, not only the traces created since the previous run, so a wide range costs more.
• Instruction. What Loop should look at, how deeply, and when to stop.
• Destinations. Where run digests are delivered.

For the full field reference, see Create a Loop automation.

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Add a focused automation

You can run several pattern automations alongside the default one. Use a focused automation when one concern needs its own scope or schedule: tool-call errors, cost growth, latency for a specific set of customers, or quality regressions. To add one, select Settings > New automation on the Patterns page. Braintrust opens a prefilled automation for you to review and save. All of them write into the same patterns list.

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Common issues

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Next steps

• Review and act on patterns once the first run finishes.
• Run Loop on a schedule to configure destinations, write permissions, and past runs in depth.
• Set up alerts for conditions you already know how to detect.
• Active observability for coding agents to find recurring problems in coding-agent sessions with Topics facets and a Loop automation.