Say What Comes Back
A methodology loop diagram — five stages in a ring — built around the one thing that makes it a cycle rather than a list bent into a circle. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. A library process beside a fishing round — same five-stage ring, same one decision, and in both the returning arrow says out loud what it carries: a sharper vocabulary in one, a record of which conditions paid in the other. Two unrelated subjects proving the closure is a rule and not a flourish.
Generated from this template with the fields shown above — five stages clockwise, one decision, and an amber arrow running from the fifth node back to the first carrying its label. Success travels on around the ring to stage four; failure branches back to stage two and nowhere else; the centre holds the loop's name and nothing more. The reference's baseline is wrong when you simply read it. Seven stages led to a decision, No returned to the start, and Yes exited to an outcome parked inside the circle. There was no arrow from the last stage back to the first, so the only thing closing the loop was the failure branch — the diagram literally said that if this works, you stop. A list bent into a circle wearing a cycle's clothes. Its centre also restated the whole ring as a line of arrow-separated text, inside the ring it was restating. This run needed a second attempt for rendering rather than logic: the first came back correct but wrapped in a mottled dark border with the title ghosting above the frame.
Generated for this library
Input
Called THE LIBRARY LOOP
Stages someone describes a screen · an agent builds it ·
it gets used in real work · what broke gets written
down · the template is rewritten
Returns a sharper vocabulary for describing screens - the
rewritten template is what the next description is
written with
Decision after it gets used in real work, ask: did it survive
contact? if not, back to an agent builds it
Accent one amber
Footnote none
Returned 1 diagram · 1:1 · white card on pale grey
ring five nodes evenly spaced, clockwise, black curved
arrows between them
closure a full arrow from the fifth node back to the first,
labelled with what it carries
decision one black diamond off the third node, its failure
arrow returning to the second and nowhere else
centre empty but for the loop's name, no summary line
title set large with the key word on an amber barYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1What the cycle is called
- 2The five stages, in order
- 3What the last stage hands the first
- 4The decision, and where failing sends you
- 5The accent
- 6The footnote, or none
Say What Comes Back
Produce ONE image, 1:1 square: a methodology loop diagram. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.
First — do you have the fields?
If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.
Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.
The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.
If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.
Fields — replace these six lines only
- What the cycle is called: {a short name} e.g. THE LIBRARY LOOP
- The five stages, in order: {five} e.g. someone describes a screen · an agent builds it · it gets used in real work · what broke gets written down · the template is rewritten
- What the last stage hands the first: {the thing that travels} e.g. a sharper vocabulary for describing screens — the rewritten template is what the next description is written with
- The decision, and where failing sends you: {which stage tests, and which stage a failure returns to} e.g. after it gets used in real work, ask: did it survive contact? if not, back to an agent builds it
- The accent: {one colour} e.g. one amber
- The footnote, or none: {a note} e.g. none
The closure law
A ring of boxes is not a cycle. A cycle is a process whose last stage produces what its first stage consumes, and the diagram has to show that.
- A full arrow runs from the last stage back to the first. Not implied by the circular arrangement — drawn, the same weight as every other arrow.
- That arrow is labelled with what it carries: the thing the last stage hands back. This is the field, and it is the whole point.
A reference run of this style drew eight stages in a beautiful ring, put a decision at the end, and sent failure back to the start while success exited to an outcome sitting in the middle of the circle. Read literally, it said: if this works, you stop. The only thing closing the loop was the failure case, which is a list bent into a circle wearing a cycle's clothes.
Success continues the loop. Failure is the branch. Never the other way round.
The decision
One only. A black diamond, placed on the ring after the stage the fields name.
- The failure arrow returns to the specific stage the fields state — not to the start by default. Label it with the failure condition.
- The success arrow carries on around the ring to the next stage. It does not leave the loop.
The ring
- Five stages. Evenly spaced, clockwise, each a white round-cornered box with a black outline, a short bold title and at most one small line under it.
- One small line icon per stage, all in one weight.
- Black curved arrows between neighbours, one direction only. No double-headed arrows anywhere: a cycle that runs both ways is not a cycle.
- Number them, in order.
The centre
Empty, or the loop's name and nothing else.
Not a summary of the stages, not an arrow-separated restatement of the ring, not a chart. The centre of a cycle diagram is where the reader rests; filling it with a second copy of the perimeter is why these diagrams feel crowded.
A faint grey circular arrow may sit behind everything as a ground.
The page
A white card on a pale grey field, with margin all round. The title across the top, large and bold, with one key word on a bar of the accent colour. A small rounded tag at the upper right. A subtitle beneath in small grey type. If a footnote is given, one small grey line at the foot of the card.
Black, white and pale grey throughout, with the accent used only on the title bar, the tag, the closure arrow's label, and the decision's success branch.
Nothing invented
The stages come from the fields. Do not add, rename, merge or infer stages, and do not generate a process from the title alone. A diagram like this is read as somebody's method; inventing the method and drawing it with this much confidence produces advice nobody gave.
Never
- ✕ a ring whose last stage does not return to the first
- ✕ success leaving the loop while failure returns to it
- ✕ any double-headed arrow
- ✕ a centre restating the stages
- ✕ more than five stages, or more than one decision
- ✕ stages the fields did not supply
- ✕ 3D, gradients, drop shadows or heavy decoration
The result
A diagram that survives being read literally: five stages, one way round, one branch for when it does not work — and a labelled arrow from the end back to the beginning carrying the thing that makes the next turn better than the last.
The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.
How to use it
- Copy the whole template with the button above.
- Replace the six FIELDS lines. The third is the whole skill — write the actual thing that travels from the last stage back to the first. If you cannot name it, the process is not a cycle.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the diagram.
- Check the success path before shipping: follow the arrows from the last stage. If they stop at an outcome instead of returning to the start, the diagram is a list drawn in a circle.
What you swap
- What the cycle is called
- THE LIBRARY LOOP
- The five stages, in order
- someone describes a screen · an agent builds it · it gets used in real work · what broke gets written down · the template is rewritten
- What the last stage hands the first
- a sharper vocabulary for describing screens — the rewritten template is what the next description is written with
- The decision, and where failing sends you
- after it gets used in real work, ask: did it survive contact? if not, back to an agent builds it
- The accent
- one amber
- The footnote, or none
- none
Before it runs
- A process that genuinely feeds itself. If you cannot say what the last stage hands the first, you have a sequence and it should be drawn as a line.
- Stages you already know. This diagram carries authority, and a model asked to invent the stages of somebody's strategy is writing advice, not drawing.
- Willingness to stop at five. Every extra stage is another label, and the ring stops being readable before the page runs out of room.
When to reach for it
When a process feeds itself: a growth model, a design method, a review cadence, an operating rhythm. Templates in this style draw a beautiful ring and let success exit it, so the only thing closing the loop is the failure branch.
What changes
- One clean diagram card: five stages in a ring, curved arrows, a decision point, and a highlighted title.
- The success path returns to the start and names what it carries, which is the whole difference between a cycle and a sequence.
- The failure path is separate and returns to a stated stage rather than defaulting to the beginning.
- The centre is left empty or holds only the loop's name, instead of restating the ring as a line of text.
- Five stages rather than eight, because past that a methodology diagram becomes a ring of paragraphs.
Pairs with
- Count Both SidesA value-proposition canvas — a square facing a circle, three regions each — where the two halves are written as pairs, so anything unmatched shows up instead of hiding in a list. Six fields.
- Each Layer Takes Something AwayAn exploded axonometric that pulls one site apart into stacked transparent layers — kept on white and kept analytical, because the temptation is to render it dramatic and lose the drawing. Six fields.
- Every Region OccupiedA three-circle overlap diagram where every region you draw has something real in it — held to three sets, because four creates overlaps nobody can fill. Six fields.