Codeman/README.md

Claudeman

A Claude Code session manager with an autonomous Ralph Loop for task assignment and monitoring.

Features

• Web Interface: Beautiful, responsive web UI with interactive terminal powered by xterm.js
• Session Management: Spawn and manage multiple Claude CLI sessions as PTY subprocesses
• Interactive Terminal: Full terminal access with resize support and buffer persistence for reconnections
• Respawn Controller: Autonomous state machine that cycles sessions (update docs → /clear → /init) with configurable prompts
• Timed Runs: Schedule Claude to work for a specific duration with live countdown
• Real-time Output: Stream Claude's responses in real-time via Server-Sent Events (21 event types)
• Task Queue: Priority-based task queue with dependency support
• Ralph Loop: Autonomous control loop that assigns tasks to idle sessions and monitors completion
• Time-Aware Loops: Extended work sessions with auto-generated follow-up tasks when minimum duration not reached
• Case Management: Create project workspaces with auto-generated CLAUDE.md templates
• Cost Tracking: Track total API costs across all sessions
• State Persistence: All state persisted to ~/.claudeman/state.json

Installation

npm install
npm run build
npm link  # Optional: make 'claudeman' available globally

Quick Start

Web Interface (Recommended)

# Start the web interface
claudeman web

# Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser

The web interface provides:

• Interactive Terminal: Full xterm.js terminal with resize support
• Prompt Input: Enter prompts and optionally set a working directory
• Duration Timer: Set duration in minutes for timed runs (0 = single run)
• Live Output: See Claude's response in real-time as it streams
• Countdown: Large timer display when running timed jobs
• Session Monitoring: View all active sessions with status indicators
• Respawn Controls: Start/stop respawn controller with configurable settings
• Case Management: Create new project workspaces with CLAUDE.md templates

CLI Usage

# Start a Claude session
claudeman start --dir /path/to/project

# Add tasks to the queue
claudeman task add "Fix the bug in auth.ts"
claudeman task add "Add tests for the API" --priority 5

# Start the Ralph loop to process tasks
claudeman ralph start

# Check status
claudeman status

Commands

Web Interface

# Start web interface on default port (3000)
claudeman web

# Use a different port
claudeman web --port 8080

Session Management

# Start a new session
claudeman session start [--dir <path>]
claudeman start [--dir <path>]  # shorthand

# Stop a session
claudeman session stop <session-id>

# List sessions
claudeman session list
claudeman list  # shorthand

# View session output
claudeman session logs <session-id>
claudeman session logs <session-id> --errors  # stderr

Task Management

# Add a task
claudeman task add "<prompt>" [options]
  --dir <path>           Working directory
  --priority <n>         Priority (higher = processed first)
  --completion <phrase>  Custom completion phrase to detect
  --timeout <ms>         Task timeout in milliseconds

# List tasks
claudeman task list
claudeman task list --status pending

# View task details
claudeman task status <task-id>

# Remove a task
claudeman task remove <task-id>

# Clear tasks
claudeman task clear              # completed tasks
claudeman task clear --failed     # failed tasks
claudeman task clear --all        # all tasks

Ralph Loop

# Start the autonomous loop
claudeman ralph start
claudeman ralph start --min-hours 4      # run for at least 4 hours
claudeman ralph start --no-auto-generate # disable auto task generation

# Stop the loop
claudeman ralph stop

# Check loop status
claudeman ralph status

Respawn Controller (Web Interface)

The respawn controller keeps interactive sessions productive by automatically cycling through update prompts:

1. Detects when session goes idle (prompt character visible, no activity)
2. Sends configured update prompt (default: "update all the docs and CLAUDE.md")
3. Sends /clear command to reset context
4. Sends /init to reinitialize
5. Repeats

Configuration via API:

# Start respawn with custom config
curl -X POST localhost:3000/api/sessions/:id/respawn/start \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"config": {"idleTimeoutMs": 10000, "updatePrompt": "run tests and fix issues"}}'

# Update config on running respawn
curl -X PUT localhost:3000/api/sessions/:id/respawn/config \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"updatePrompt": "refactor the API layer"}'

State Machine:

WATCHING → SENDING_UPDATE → WAITING_UPDATE → SENDING_CLEAR → WAITING_CLEAR → SENDING_INIT → WAITING_INIT → WATCHING

Utility

# Overall status
claudeman status

# Reset all state (stops sessions, clears tasks)
claudeman reset --force

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Claudeman CLI                        │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Ralph Loop Controller                                  │
│  - Monitors all sessions                                │
│  - Assigns tasks from queue                             │
│  - Detects completion/failure                           │
│  - Self-generates follow-up tasks                       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Session Manager              │  Task Queue             │
│  - Spawn claude processes     │  - Priority queue       │
│  - Track stdin/stdout/stderr  │  - Task definitions     │
│  - Health monitoring          │  - Dependencies         │
│  - Graceful shutdown          │  - Status tracking      │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  State Store (JSON file persistence)                    │
│  - Sessions, tasks, logs                                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Completion Detection

The Ralph Loop detects task completion by looking for:

1. Promise tags: <promise>COMPLETE</promise> or custom phrases
2. Common indicators: "Task completed successfully", "All tasks done", "✓ Complete"

When creating tasks, you can specify a custom completion phrase:

claudeman task add "Refactor the auth module" --completion "AUTH_REFACTOR_DONE"

The session output will be scanned for <promise>AUTH_REFACTOR_DONE</promise>.

Time-Aware Loops

For extended autonomous work sessions:

claudeman ralph start --min-hours 8

When the minimum duration hasn't been reached and all tasks are complete, the Ralph Loop will auto-generate follow-up tasks like:

• Review and optimize recently changed code
• Add tests for uncovered code paths
• Update documentation
• Check for security vulnerabilities
• Run linting and fix issues

State File

All state is persisted to ~/.claudeman/state.json:

{
  "sessions": { ... },
  "tasks": { ... },
  "ralphLoop": {
    "status": "running",
    "startedAt": 1234567890,
    "minDurationMs": 14400000,
    "tasksCompleted": 5,
    "tasksGenerated": 2
  },
  "config": {
    "pollIntervalMs": 1000,
    "defaultTimeoutMs": 300000,
    "maxConcurrentSessions": 5
  }
}

Development

# Run in development mode
npm run dev -- start

# Build
npm run build

# Clean build artifacts
npm run clean

Requirements

• Node.js 18+
• Claude CLI (claude) installed and available in PATH