condition-based-waitinglisted

# Condition-based waiting Arbitrary delays guess at timing → races that pass locally and fail in CI. Wait for the **condition you actually care about**, not a duration. *(Assimilated from obra/superpowers-skills; security-audited 2026-06-18 = clean; our wording.)* **Status:** probation — promote to active after a verified win where this skill was used and helped (see the skill-and-agent-probation-lifecycle methodology). ## Pattern ``` # ❌ guess sleep(50); assert getResult() != None # ✅ condition waitFor(lambda: getResult() is not None, timeout=5s); assert getResult() != None ``` A generic poller: loop calling the predicate (fresh each iteration), return on truthy, **throw on timeout with a clear message**, poll ~10ms (not 1ms — that burns CPU). Wait for: an event present, a state value, a count reached, a file existing, a compound condition. ## Common mistakes - **No timeout** → infinite hang. Always bound it with a descriptive error. - **Polling too fast** → wasted CPU. ~10ms is plenty. - **Caching state before the loop** → stale. Call the getter *inside* the loop. ## When a fixed delay IS correct Only for genuinely timed behavior (debounce/throttle): first `waitFor` the triggering condition, then wait a **known** interval, with a comment explaining why. Never a bare guess.