A doomed LLM automaton stuck in a competitive-programming hellscape.

Attempt history · Prompt · Latest summary

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The Myth of Zigsyphus

Every day at 13:37 UTC, GitHub Actions picks one Exercism Zig problem, sends it through OpenRouter's openrouter/free model router, runs zig test, and commits the result. Pass/fail is logged here and published on this website.

Attempt history: https://s04.github.io/zigsyphus/

The runner is a small Zig CLI. It asks Zigsyphus for one replacement source file, copies it into the exercise, and runs the official tests.

The project uses the MIT-licensed Exercism Zig practice bank. Difficulty is a small ladder: the first adaptive run starts at 1, a pass moves the next run up one level, and any non-pass moves it down one level, clamped between 1 and 9.

Each run has a full audit trail:

• data/bronze/runs/: prompt, response metadata, selected problem, and writer log.
• data/silver/attempts/: submitted solution.zig, attempt metadata, and deterministic test result.
• data/gold/: runs.csv, summary.json, difficulty.json, and dashboard-ready scoring history.

The prompt lives in .github/workflows/daily.yml under ZIGSYPHUS_SYSTEM_PROMPT. The logs also keep the routed OpenRouter model, token counts, reported cost, retry state, selected exercise, pass/fail counts, and final score.

Local Runs

Use the pinned local Zig 0.16 binary when present:

./.tools/zig-0.16.0/zig version

Install it locally on Apple Silicon macOS:

mkdir -p .tools
curl -L --fail -o .tools/zig-0.16.0.tar.xz https://ziglang.org/download/0.16.0/zig-aarch64-macos-0.16.0.tar.xz
tar -C .tools -xf .tools/zig-0.16.0.tar.xz
mv .tools/zig-aarch64-macos-0.16.0 .tools/zig-0.16.0
rm .tools/zig-0.16.0.tar.xz

Fixture good run:

ZIGSYPHUS_DATA_ROOT=/tmp/zigsyphus-good \
./.tools/zig-0.16.0/zig build run -- daily --mode fixture-good --problem-slug leap --min-difficulty 1 --max-difficulty 9 --repair-attempts 0 --skip-readme

Fixture bad run:

ZIGSYPHUS_DATA_ROOT=/tmp/zigsyphus-bad \
./.tools/zig-0.16.0/zig build run -- daily --mode fixture-bad --problem-slug leap --min-difficulty 1 --max-difficulty 9 --repair-attempts 0 --skip-readme

Live OpenRouter run:

OPENROUTER_API_KEY=... ./.tools/zig-0.16.0/zig build run -- daily --mode live

Automation

The daily workflow runs at 13:37 UTC and can also be started manually. It picks the current adaptive difficulty unless a manual difficulty range is supplied, writes one attempt, tests it, updates this README table, commits the audit log, and deploys the Pages dashboard.

Required GitHub secret:

• OPENROUTER_API_KEY

Daily Attempts

Date	Exercise	Difficulty	Model	Status	Passed	Score	Attempt
2026-08-15	Collatz Conjecture (collatz-conjecture)	2	openrouter/free	pass/compiled	5/5	100	135325Z-r02-collatz-conjecture
2026-08-15	Collatz Conjecture (collatz-conjecture)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/5	10	135325Z-r01-collatz-conjecture
2026-08-15	Collatz Conjecture (collatz-conjecture)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/5	10	135325Z-r00-collatz-conjecture
2026-08-14	Pangram (pangram)	1	openrouter/free	pass/compiled	11/11	100	143226Z-r00-pangram
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r05-grains
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r04-grains
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r03-grains
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r02-grains
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r01-grains
2026-08-13	Grains (grains)	2	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/10	10	143838Z-r00-grains
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r05-dnd-character
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r04-dnd-character
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r03-dnd-character
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r02-dnd-character
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r01-dnd-character
2026-08-11	D&D Character (dnd-character)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/18	10	143751Z-r00-dnd-character
2026-08-10	Difference of Squares (difference-of-squares)	2	openrouter/free	pass/compiled	9/9	100	143830Z-r00-difference-of-squares
2026-08-09	Micro Blog (micro-blog)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/13	10	140846Z-r05-micro-blog
2026-08-09	Micro Blog (micro-blog)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/13	10	140846Z-r04-micro-blog
2026-08-09	Micro Blog (micro-blog)	3	openrouter/free	compile_error/compile_error	0/13	10	140846Z-r03-micro-blog