Adaptive Spin Wait

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Changing spin loops
• Thread.SpinWait
• Fixed spin counts
• Spin-to-block/backoff transitions

Example prompts

• “Use the adaptive-spin-wait skill to select Garnet spin-wait policies based on the slow-path cost”
• “/adaptive-spin-wait”

Workflow steps

7 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Use ConfiguredSpinWait.CpuLocal() or ConfiguredSpinWait.BoundedProgressive(...) for these
2. 2Document why the selected policy matches the slow path.
3. 3Keep every aggressive phase bounded unless indefinite progressive yielding is the intended slow path.
4. 4Check completion and cancellation at the required cadence.
5. 5Await a ValueTask directly when the slow path can complete synchronously. Do not call
6. 6Account for condition cost. A collection scan can dominate the wait instruction itself.
7. 7Measure before replacing a bounded progressive wait with the CPU-local policy; entering an

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 77d6770. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are csharp).

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Adaptive Spin Wait loads about 1k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 58 tokens; SKILL.md has 442 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~58

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~1k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from microsoft/garnet at commit 77d6770, republished under its MIT licence (© microsoft). 442 words, ~1,009 tokens.

name

adaptive-spin-wait

description

Selects Garnet spin-wait policies based on the slow-path cost. Use when adding or changing spin loops, busy waits, retry polling, SpinWait, Thread.SpinWait, fixed spin counts, or spin-to-block/backoff transitions.

var spinner = ConfiguredSpinWait.CpuLocal();
while (true)
{
    if (ConditionSatisfied())
        return;

    if (!spinner.TryWait())
        break;
}

WaitSlowPath();

var spinner = ConfiguredSpinWait.BoundedProgressive(
    maxIterations,
    sleep1Threshold: -1);
while (true)
{
    if (ConditionSatisfied())
        return;

    if (!spinner.TryWait())
        break;
}

WaitSlowPath();

for (var i = 0; i < maxIterations && !ConditionSatisfied(); i++)
    Thread.SpinWait(pauseIterations);

© microsoft, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in .github/skills/adaptive-spin-wait of microsoft/garnet.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 77d6770