Turn ad-hoc agent sessions into a repeatable loop with verification gates — loop engineering for software work. You design the loop (research → plan → execute in waves → close); Session Orchestrator runs it on top of your existing agent, with the guards, telemetry, and cross-session memory that keep a long agent run honest. Inter-wave reviews catch regressions before they ship; carryover issues mean loose ends get tracked, not lost.
Works with Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor IDE, and Pi — the same skills and commands across all four, with platform-adapted hooks and enforcement (see Platform support). Community plugin (MIT, community-maintained) for solo devs and small teams.
/session feature # research + Q&A — inspect git, issues, history, then agree on scope
/go # execute in five typed waves (fixed roles), with a quality gate between each
/close # verify every item, commit cleanly, file carryover issues for the rest
That is the whole loop. /plan and /evolve extend it (see Lifecycle), but you can start with just these three.
Prerequisite: Node.js 24 or later (
node --version). v3.x runs as ES modules and needs a real Node runtime. Install Node.js.
The two paths below differ only by install mechanism, not capability or tier: Claude Code pulls from the plugin marketplace; every other platform clones the repo. The same skills and commands ship to all four.
Run these two slash commands inside Claude Code (not in a shell):
/plugin marketplace add Kanevry/session-orchestrator
/plugin install session-orchestrator@kanevry
Then install Node dependencies once (hooks import zx) and restart Claude Code:
cd "$(claude plugin dir session-orchestrator 2>/dev/null || echo ~/.claude/plugins/session-orchestrator)"
npm installgit clone https://github.com/Kanevry/session-orchestrator.git ~/Projects/session-orchestrator
cd ~/Projects/session-orchestrator && npm install
node scripts/codex-install.mjs # Codex CLI
node scripts/cursor-install.mjs /path/to/your/project # Cursor IDE
node scripts/pi-install.mjs /path/to/your/project --settings-only # PiSetup guides: Codex · Cursor IDE · Pi. Per-IDE notes on CLAUDE.md vs AGENTS.md: instruction-file-resolution.
Add a ## Session Config section to your project's CLAUDE.md (Claude Code and Cursor IDE) or AGENTS.md (Codex CLI and Pi) — see instruction-file-resolution for which file each platform reads. The smallest valid config is seven fields:
## Session Config
test-command: npm test
typecheck-command: npm run typecheck
lint-command: npm run lint
agents-per-wave: 6
waves: 5
persistence: true
enforcement: warnEverything else is opt-in. See docs/session-config-template.md for the full template and docs/session-config-reference.md for the canonical type and default reference.
- 43 skills for the session lifecycle (start, plan, execute, close, evolve), discovery, vault sync, MCP authoring, debugging, brainstorming, plan grilling, persona panels, cross-repo dispatch, learning→rule reconciliation, audits, and more
- 23 slash commands (
/session,/go,/close,/discovery,/plan,/grill,/evolve,/autopilot,/dispatcher,/reconcile,/test,/debug, …) - 14 typed subagents (code-implementer, test-writer, security-reviewer, session-reviewer, qa-strategist, architect-reviewer, …)
- 10 hook event types enforcing scope, blocking destructive commands, gating templates-first, capturing telemetry — full on Claude Code; experimental, post-hoc, or bridged on the other platforms (Platform support)
- 10,000+ vitest tests run on every commit (telemetry methodology)
Full component inventory: docs/components.md.
flowchart TD
A["/plan [feature|retro]"] -->|optional, defines WHAT| B["/session [type]"]
B -->|research + Q&A| C["/go"]
C -->|5 waves with quality gates| D["/close"]
D -->|verifies + commits| E["/evolve [analyze]"]
E -->|extracts cross-session learnings| B
style C fill:#1f6feb,color:#fff
style D fill:#238636,color:#fff
/plan is optional — you can create issues manually and jump straight to /session. /evolve runs deliberately after 5+ sessions, not automatically.
Most agentic-coding tools jump straight into writing code. Session Orchestrator adds a structured loop on top: research first, agree on scope, then execute in five typed waves with verification gates between them.
flowchart LR
W1["1·Discovery<br/>read-only audit"] --> G1{Gate}
G1 --> W2["2·Impl-Core<br/>primary code"]
W2 --> G2{Gate}
G2 --> W3["3·Impl-Polish<br/>integration, edges"]
W3 --> G3{Gate}
G3 --> W4["4·Quality<br/>simplify + tests"]
W4 --> G4{Full Gate}
G4 --> W5["5·Finalization<br/>commit + close"]
style G4 fill:#d29922,color:#000
When you type /session feature:
- Phase analysis runs in parallel — git state, open issues, recent commits, SSOT freshness, resource health, and prior-session memory are all inspected, then distilled into a structured Session Overview with a recommendation, not a wall of raw data.
- You agree on scope — through a tool-rendered picker (Claude Code) or a numbered list (Codex / Cursor / Pi). The orchestrator has an opinion and tells you what it would do.
- The plan is decomposed into five waves — Discovery (read-only), Impl-Core, Impl-Polish, Quality, Finalization. Each wave has a defined purpose and a deliverable; agent counts scale by session type.
/goexecutes — agents work in parallel within a wave. A session-reviewer audits the output between waves on eight dimensions; only findings at confidence ≥ 80 reach you./closeships it — every planned item is verified, quality gates run full, and unfinished work becomes carryover issues. Files are staged individually, so parallel sessions can't stomp each other.
Two complementary commands round out the loop: /plan runs before a session when you need a PRD or retrospective; /evolve runs occasionally to surface patterns across sessions and feed them back at the next start.
The system is markdown-driven config plus a thin Node runtime — skills, commands, and agents are Markdown with YAML frontmatter; scripts/lib/*.mjs and hooks/*.mjs handle dispatch, validation, and telemetry. Everything is plain text: if something goes wrong, you can read every file and see what happened.
- Five typed waves, not one big batch. Discovery first, so implementers start with shared context. Impl-Core before Impl-Polish, so architecture lands before integrations. Quality runs a simplification pass on AI-generated code before tests are written — otherwise tests pin the AI patterns into place.
- Inter-wave reviews, not just end-of-session. Catching regressions between waves — not only at the end — stops a bad pattern from propagating into later work; the confidence floor filters speculative criticism so only high-signal findings reach you.
- State persists across crashes.
STATE.mdrecords wave progress and deviations; the next/sessionoffers to resume from the last completed wave. - Hooks enforce, not just warn. A pre-Bash guard blocks destructive shell commands, and pre-Edit scope enforcement blocks writes outside an agent's allowed paths — in main sessions and subagent waves alike (specifics in Safety). This hard enforcement is full on Claude Code; it degrades to experimental / post-hoc / bridged on Codex CLI, Cursor IDE, and Pi (see Platform support).
- Cross-session learning is opt-in and inspectable. Every session writes a record; after 5+ sessions
/evolve analyzeextracts confidence-scored patterns you can read and prune. Nothing is hidden. - VCS dual support, no lock-in. Auto-detects GitLab or GitHub from your remote and drives the full lifecycle for both.
Every release is additive and backward-compatible. Highlights of the v3.13.0 line:
- Issue premise verification — session-start checks each candidate issue's state-claims against the actual code before you align on scope; stale premises get flagged SHIPPED or FALSE-PREMISE instead of turning into planned dead work.
- Broken-window budget — knowingly-broken shipments (stubs, overridden review findings, unresolved MED/LOW) file hard-due-date closure issues at session close, so "we'll fix it later" gets a deadline instead of drifting (opt-in).
- Confidential-names guard — a host-local, never-committed name list is enforced at the leakage scanner's print choke-point; customer or repo names cannot reach a public mirror's CI log, no matter which rule fired.
- PM toolkit complete —
/grillpre-mortem + kill-assumption tactics,/brainstormMom-Test grounding,/planOpportunity Score + job-story PRDs,/discoveryfeature-request clustering with an explicit evidence-vs-judgment fork. - Rules library activated — six exemplar rule-packs (backend, frontend, swift, security-web, …) now live in installable opt-in buckets with archetype tags and provenance headers.
Previous line (v3.12.0): gated session handover, fail-loud wave dispatch, curated public docs, session-lock reliability, portable hooks.
Full version history: CHANGELOG.md.
| Capability | Session Orchestrator | Manual CLAUDE.md |
Other orchestrators |
|---|---|---|---|
| Session lifecycle (start → plan → execute → close) | Full, automated | Manual | Partial |
| Typed waves with quality gates | 5 roles, progressive verification | None | Batch execution |
| Session persistence and crash recovery | STATE.md plus memory files |
None | Partial |
| Scope and command enforcement hooks | PreToolUse with strict / warn / off | None | None |
| Circuit breaker and spiral detection | Per-agent, with recovery | None | Partial |
| Cross-session learning | Confidence-scored learnings | None | None |
| VCS integration (GitLab + GitHub) | Dual, auto-detected | Manual CLI | Usually GitHub only |
| Session close with carryover | Verified, with issue creation | Manual | Partial |
The design goal is engineering quality: every wave exits verified, every unfinished issue gets a carryover ticket, every session closes with a clean commit. A detailed head-to-head vs. maestro-orchestrate is in docs/components.md.
| Feature | Claude Code | Codex CLI | Cursor IDE | Pi |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All 23 commands | Native slash commands | Native plugin commands | Rules-based (.mdc) | Prompt templates |
| Parallel agents | Agent tool | Multi-agent roles | Sequential only | Sequential (parallel planned) |
| Session persistence | .claude/STATE.md |
.codex/STATE.md |
.cursor/STATE.md |
.pi/STATE.md |
| Scope enforcement | PreToolUse hooks | Hooks (experimental) | afterFileEdit (post-hoc) |
tool_call bridge |
| AskUserQuestion | Native tool | Numbered-list fallback | Numbered-list fallback | Numbered-list fallback |
| Quality gates | Full | Full | Full | Full |
All platforms share the same skills, commands, hooks, and scripts; platform-specific adaptation lives in scripts/lib/platform.mjs. OS: macOS and Linux are first-class and run in CI (ubuntu-latest, macos-latest). Windows runs natively (all paths via path.join, tmp via os.tmpdir()) but is not covered by CI — treat it as best-effort and run smoke tests locally when changing OS-sensitive code. Cursor and Pi have known event-coverage caveats — see docs/cursor-setup.md and docs/pi-setup.md.
"'node' not found on the hook PATH — plugin hooks are skipped." The harness executes hook commands via /bin/sh -c with its own PATH — that shell does not source ~/.zshrc/~/.bashrc, so Node installed via Homebrew (/opt/homebrew/bin), nvm, volta, or asdf can be invisible to hooks even though node works fine in your terminal. All hook commands route through hooks/run-node.sh, which resolves Node via $SO_NODE_BIN → PATH → well-known install dirs → nvm and degrades gracefully when nothing is found: hooks are skipped with one warning per 6 hours instead of a shell error on every tool call. Fixes, in order of preference: launch the harness from a shell where node resolves; export SO_NODE_BIN=/abs/path/to/node; or install Node 24+ to a standard location.
hooks/pre-bash-destructive-guard.mjs blocks destructive shell commands (git reset --hard, rm -rf, git push --force, and more) in the main session and in subagent waves. Policy lives in .orchestrator/policy/blocked-commands.json. Bypass per session only for intentional maintenance:
allow-destructive-ops: trueThe rule source of truth is .claude/rules/parallel-sessions.md (PSA-003), vendored to consumer repos via /bootstrap.
git clone https://github.com/Kanevry/session-orchestrator.git && cd session-orchestrator
npm install
npm test # vitest
npm run lint # ESLint v10 + Prettier
npm run typecheck # node --check on every .mjs file.npmrc ships with ignore-scripts=true (supply-chain defence), so Husky git hooks don't auto-wire on install — run npx husky once after cloning. git commit then runs gitleaks → owner-privacy scan → lint-staged → commitlint. CI re-runs everything, plus more.
Contributor docs: Plugin Architecture (v3) · CONTRIBUTING.md · agent authoring spec.
Session Orchestrator is provided as-is — a community project with no SLA, no commercial support contract, and no guaranteed response time. Maintenance is best-effort.
- Questions, ideas, show-and-tell → GitHub Discussions
- Bugs and feature requests → Issues
What it is not:
- Not an official product of any agent vendor. An independent, community-maintained project — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, or any agent it integrates with. (It is distributed through the Claude Code plugin marketplace, but is not an Anthropic product.)
- Not a replacement for Claude Code / Codex CLI / Cursor / Pi. It is a workflow layer that runs on top of your existing agent — you still need one of those installed.
- Not a hosted service. Runs locally — no server, account, or cloud component.
- No guarantee that telemetry numbers transfer to your repo. Reported test counts and metrics describe this repository under its own conditions (details). Your results will vary by stack, project size, and configuration.
- docs/ Router — living reference vs. public decision history vs. active work documents; what moved to the private Meta-Vault and why
- User Guide — installation, config reference, workflow walkthrough, FAQ
- Components & Reference — full skill/command/agent/hook inventory, repository anatomy, comparisons
- Plugin Architecture (v3) — contributor guide, layering, hook anatomy, testing
- Migration to v3 — upgrade path from v2.x, known issues, rollback
- Telemetry claims — how reported metrics are measured, and why they may not transfer
- Example Configs — Session Config examples for Next.js, Express, Swift
- CHANGELOG.md — version history
We follow Conventional Commits — see CONTRIBUTING.md.
This plugin is a methodology turned into code. If you want the reasoning behind it — why execution runs in waves, why every wave ends at a verification gate, how to make an autonomous loop that actually finishes — those playbooks are taught hands-on at agenticbuilders.at:
- Multi-Agent Orchestration — leading several agents in coordinated waves: when parallelism pays, briefing subagents cleanly, turning failures into firm gates.
- Loop Engineering — designing autonomous loops that finish verifiably: done-conditions, verification gates, kill-switches.
The plugin is free and MIT. The courses are for going deeper, not a requirement for using it.