Common questions
Short answers about ropeshift v0.1.0-alpha.14. Each one links to the part of the docs it comes from.
What is ropeshift?
A free, fair-source, self-hosted software factory: project management combined with agentic workforce management and operations. It turns planned work into verified outcomes with supervised agents, and it is designed to interrupt a person only when a person is needed. It wraps agent CLIs and does not replace them, and it is not a model client.
What works in this alpha?
Solo mode, on one machine, on macOS or Linux. All four parts work there: the work ledger, planning and decisions, supervised agents, and the web UI, with ropeshift top in a terminal. Claude Code is the agent CLI it drives, and work comes from repository files or is recorded directly in the ledger.
Designed, not built yet: the group and cluster modes, workers on more than one machine, reading work from an issue tracker and writing results back to it, and drivers for Codex and opencode.
Source: README, Status (opens in a new tab), README, What it is (opens in a new tab)
Which platforms does it run on?
macOS and Linux, on arm64 and amd64. Install it with Homebrew, the install script, or a .deb or .rpm package for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, or RHEL. See Install.
Which agent CLIs does it drive?
Claude Code. This release is qualified on Claude Code 2.1.316, 2.1.317, and 2.1.319. Before a lane starts on any other version, the worker checks the CLI on its own machine, and a version that does not pass runs degraded, on documented surfaces only.
Drivers for Codex and opencode are designed, not built yet.
Source: Qualification, README, What it is (opens in a new tab)
Does ropeshift merge my work?
Yes, at the level you choose. Each repository has a review target. With branch, the default, ropeshift merges reviewed work into the base branch with git and pushes it without force. With pull_request, the worker pushes each change and opens its pull request before review, then posts the review's verdicts on it.
The merge authority level decides who approves: person_merges (you merge, and ropeshift records it), person_approves (ropeshift merges after you approve the reviewed commit), or review_approves (ropeshift merges once the review agent passes every criterion and the required checks are green). Ropeshift only merges the commit the review saw.
Work merges after the work it depends on. Approved work waits until every work order it depends on is done, in its own repository or another, and the wait names each one. When you merge it yourself, at person_merges, the wait names the dependencies to merge first.
Pull requests use the gh CLI on the worker under your own sign-in: ropeshift never signs in for you or reads the token, and agents never hold a forge credential.
Source: Onboarding, Review through pull requests, Merging accepted work
Can I use ropeshift on an existing project?
Yes. Run ropeshift adopt in the repository, or adopt it from Projects in the web UI, from an existing folder of clones. It brings your existing documents in on a branch, keeping their prose and IDs, marks what already exists, continues or leaves out work on branches in flight, and ends in one plan approval. You merge the adoption branch yourself.
Can another agent act on my project?
Yes, through a delegate. A member gives an outside agent a credential scoped to one project, in Members or with ropeshift delegate create. Its routine calls run as the delegate. A call that needs consent, such as creating work, starting a contract review, accepting work, or removing a repository, becomes a confirmation card, and nothing runs until a member confirms it in Needs you or with ropeshift confirm. The project's delegate policy, in Settings, can exempt any of these. Calls only a member may make are refused. Each member's assistant is a delegate ropeshift runs itself, and it creates work and starts contract reviews at once. The audit names each delegate and the member it acted for.
Source: Authorization, Authorization, Command line, API
Is there an assistant I can talk to?
Yes. Each member has an assistant in each project, in the web UI's conversation dock or with ropeshift chat. It runs on a worker with a credential of its own, reads the project's repositories but cannot edit or write files, and a change it proposes becomes a confirmation card for you to confirm. Its session starts when you start typing and stops when it is idle.
Source: Authorization, API
Does ropeshift see my agent credentials?
No. Each agent CLI is installed and signed in on each worker through its vendor's own flow, and ropeshift never reads, stores, relays, or proxies agent credentials. To learn what a machine can run, ropeshift worker doctor runs claude auth status and keeps only the kind of sign-in it reports: a subscription, an API key, signed out, or unknown.
Source: Onboarding
Can I run it on my Claude subscription?
A worker signed in with an API key starts at unattended, under the key owner's own agreement with Anthropic.
Source: README, Claude subscription accounts (opens in a new tab), Onboarding
Does it need an account, Docker, or a network connection?
No account and no Docker. Solo mode is one binary on one machine, and ropeshift opens no network connection of its own: the agent CLI it runs reaches its model provider, and gh reaches your forge when a repository reviews through pull requests. The web UI is served on loopback only, at http://127.0.0.1:7317. Telemetry leaves the machine only when you configure an exporter, and a notice only after a member publishes a policy that turns a channel on.
Source: README, Ways to run it (opens in a new tab), Onboarding, Notifications, Telemetry
Does it send telemetry anywhere?
Not unless you configure an exporter. Each worker stores telemetry on its own machine, and nothing leaves that machine unless the standard OpenTelemetry exporter settings name an endpoint. Telemetry holds no prompt, response, or tool content unless a person turns content capture on in their own profile. Before anything is exported, account attributes such as user.email are dropped.
Source: Telemetry
What is the license?
Ropeshift is free and fair source under the Functional Source License, FSL-1.1-ALv2. Each version also becomes available under Apache-2.0 two years after its release. Read LICENSE.md at v0.1.0-alpha.14 (opens in a new tab).
Source: README, License and contributions (opens in a new tab)
Can I contribute?
Outside code contributions are not open yet. The repository is public, so you can read the code, the documentation, and each release.
Source: README, License and contributions (opens in a new tab)
How can I support ropeshift?
Ropeshift is free to use, and support is optional. If you would like to support its development, you can use GitHub Sponsors or Ko-fi, both linked from the support page.
How stable is it?
It is an alpha, so expect breaking changes before 1.0.0. An alpha is incomplete, and its features may still change or disappear. While the version is below 1.0.0, a change that breaks a command, a flag, an API route, a file format, or stored data raises the minor version.