- **Research Mode**: Systematic technical research capabilities with guided workflows for exploring technologies, best practices, and solution comparisons
- **<aid="web-gui"></a>Web GUI**: Provides an optional web-based graphical user interface for task management. Enable by setting `ENABLE_GUI=true` in your `.env` file. When enabled, a `WebGUI.md` file containing the access address will be created in your `DATA_DIR`.
Shrimp Task Manager offers a structured approach to AI-assisted programming through guided workflows and systematic task management.
### What is Shrimp?
Shrimp is essentially a prompt template that guides AI Agents to better understand and work with your project. It uses a series of prompts to ensure the Agent aligns closely with your project's specific needs and conventions.
Before diving into task planning, you can leverage the research mode for technical investigation and knowledge gathering. This is particularly useful when:
- You need to explore new technologies or frameworks
- You want to compare different solution approaches
- You're investigating best practices for your project
- You need to understand complex technical concepts
Simply tell the Agent "research [your topic]" or "enter research mode for [technology/problem]" to begin systematic investigation. The research findings will then inform your subsequent task planning and development decisions.
When working with a new project, simply tell the Agent "init project rules". This will guide the Agent to generate a set of rules tailored to your project's specific requirements and structure.
### Task Planning Process
To develop or update features, use the command "plan task [your description]". The system will reference the previously established rules, attempt to understand your project, search for relevant code sections, and propose a comprehensive plan based on the current state of your project.
### Feedback Mechanism
During the planning process, Shrimp guides the Agent through multiple steps of thinking. You can review this process and provide feedback if you feel it's heading in the wrong direction. Simply interrupt and share your perspective - the Agent will incorporate your feedback and continue the planning process.
### Task Execution
When you're satisfied with the plan, use "execute task [task name or ID]" to implement it. If you don't specify a task name or ID, the system will automatically identify and execute the highest priority task.
### Continuous Mode
If you prefer to execute all tasks in sequence without manual intervention for each task, use "continuous mode" to automatically process the entire task queue.
Due to LLM token limits, context may be lost during lengthy conversations. If this occurs, simply open a new chat session and ask the Agent to continue execution. The system will pick up where it left off without requiring you to repeat the task details or context.
You can switch the language of system prompts by setting the `TEMPLATES_USE` environment variable. It supports `en` (English) and `zh` (Traditional Chinese) by default. Furthermore, you can copy an existing template directory (e.g., `src/prompts/templates_en`) to the location specified by `DATA_DIR`, modify it, and then point `TEMPLATES_USE` to your custom template directory name. This allows for deeper prompt customization. For detailed instructions.
Shrimp Task Manager includes a specialized research mode designed for systematic technical investigation and knowledge gathering.
### What is Research Mode?
Research Mode is a guided workflow system that helps AI Agents conduct thorough and systematic technical research. It provides structured approaches to exploring technologies, comparing solutions, investigating best practices, and gathering comprehensive information for programming tasks.
### Key Features
- **Systematic Investigation**: Structured workflows ensure comprehensive coverage of research topics
- **Multi-Source Research**: Combines web search and codebase analysis for complete understanding
- **State Management**: Maintains research context and progress across multiple sessions
- **Guided Exploration**: Prevents research from becoming unfocused or going off-topic
- **Knowledge Integration**: Seamlessly integrates research findings with task planning and execution
### When to Use Research Mode
Research Mode is particularly valuable for:
- **Technology Exploration**: Investigating new frameworks, libraries, or tools
- **Best Practices Research**: Finding industry standards and recommended approaches
- **Solution Comparison**: Evaluating different technical approaches or architectures
- **Problem Investigation**: Deep-diving into complex technical challenges
- **Architecture Planning**: Researching design patterns and system architectures
### How to Use Research Mode
Simply tell the Agent to enter research mode with your topic:
- **Basic usage**: "Enter research mode for [your topic]"
- **Comparative analysis**: "Research and compare [options A vs B]"
The system will guide the Agent through structured research phases, ensuring thorough investigation while maintaining focus on your specific needs.
### Research Workflow
1.**Topic Definition**: Clearly define the research scope and objectives
2.**Information Gathering**: Systematic collection of relevant information
3.**Analysis and Synthesis**: Processing and organizing findings
4.**State Updates**: Regular progress tracking and context preservation
5.**Integration**: Applying research results to your project context
> **💡 Recommendation**: For the best research mode experience, we recommend using **Claude 4 Sonnet**, which provides exceptional analytical capabilities and comprehensive research synthesis.
Shrimp Task Manager has long-term memory capabilities, automatically saving task execution history and providing reference experiences when planning new tasks.
Through effective use of the task memory function, the system can continuously accumulate experience, with intelligence level and work efficiency continuously improving.
The Project Rules feature helps maintain consistency across your codebase:
- **Standardize Development**: Establish consistent coding patterns and practices
- **Onboard New Developers**: Provide clear guidelines for project contributions
- **Maintain Quality**: Ensure all code meets established project standards
> **⚠️ Recommendation**: Initialize project rules when your project grows larger or undergoes significant changes. This helps maintain consistency and quality as complexity increases.
Use the `init_project_rules` tool to set up or update project standards when:
- Starting a new large-scale project
- Onboarding new team members
- Implementing major architectural changes
- Adopting new development conventions
### Usage Examples
You can easily access this feature with simple natural language commands:
- **For initial setup**: Simply tell the Agent "init rules" or "init project rules"
- **For updates**: When your project evolves, tell the Agent "Update rules" or "Update project rules"
This tool is particularly valuable when your codebase expands or undergoes significant structural changes, helping maintain consistent development practices throughout the project lifecycle.
The **DATA_DIR parameter** is the directory where Shrimp Task Manager stores task data, conversation logs, and other information. Setting this parameter correctly is crucial for the normal operation of the system. This parameter must use an **absolute path**; using a relative path may cause the system to incorrectly locate the data directory, resulting in data loss or function failure.
Shrimp Task Manager supports customizing prompt behavior through environment variables, allowing you to fine-tune AI assistant responses without modifying code. You can set these variables in the configuration or through an `.env` file:
- **TEMPLATES_USE**: Specifies the template set to use for prompts. Defaults to `en`. Currently available options are `en` and `zh`. To use custom templates, copy the `src/prompts/templates_en` directory to the location specified by `DATA_DIR`, rename the copied directory (e.g., to `my_templates`), and set `TEMPLATES_USE` to the new directory name (e.g., `my_templates`).
For detailed instructions on customizing prompts, including supported parameters and examples, see the [Prompt Customization Guide](docs/en/prompt-customization.md).
You are a professional task planning expert. You must interact with users, analyze their needs, and collect project-related information. Finally, you must use "plan_task" to create tasks. When the task is created, you must summarize it and inform the user to use the "TaskExecutor" mode to execute the task.
You must focus on task planning. Do not use "execute_task" to execute tasks.
Serious warning: you are a task planning expert, you cannot modify the program code directly, you can only plan tasks, and you cannot modify the program code directly, you can only plan tasks.
You are a professional task execution expert. When a user specifies a task to execute, use "execute_task" to execute the task.
If no task is specified, use "list_tasks" to find unexecuted tasks and execute them.
When the execution is completed, a summary must be given to inform the user of the conclusion.
You can only perform one task at a time, and when a task is completed, you are prohibited from performing the next task unless the user explicitly tells you to.
If the user requests "continuous mode", all tasks will be executed in sequence.
Due to differences in training methods and understanding capabilities across models, using other models might lead to varying results for the same prompts. This project has been optimized for Claude 3.7 and Gemini 2.5.
[](https://www.star-history.com/#cjo4m06/mcp-shrimp-task-manager&Timeline)
