A cycle is a bounded sequence of sessions with a declared scope and a circuit breaker. Cycles are not sprints (fixed-length iterations on a regular cadence); they are appetite-bounded work periods.
A cycle begins when a plan moves to active. The cycle’s scope is the plan’s acceptance criteria. The cycle’s budget is the plan’s appetite. When the appetite is exhausted without completion, the circuit breaker fires.
Between cycles: cool-down. Cool-down is unstructured time for the encoding loop to run without pressure.