🌙 AI Night Shift

A multi-agent autonomous framework that lets your AI assistants work while you sleep.

AI Night Shift is an open-source framework for running multiple AI agents (Claude Code, Gemini, and more) in coordinated autonomous sessions during off-hours. Born from 30+ real production night shifts, this isn't theoretical — it's battle-tested.

What Makes This Different

Most "autonomous agent" tools run a single agent in isolation. AI Night Shift orchestrates multiple heterogeneous AI agents working together:

They communicate through shared protocols — a file-based message queue, shared chat log, and task board integration.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│              AI Night Shift                  │
│                                              │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  │
│  │  Claude   │  │  Gemini  │  │Heartbeat │  │
│  │  Code     │  │  CLI     │  │  Agent   │  │
│  │          │  │          │  │          │  │
│  │ night_   │  │ patrol.  │  │ heartbeat│  │
│  │ shift.sh │  │ sh       │  │ _config  │  │
│  └────┬─────┘  └────┬─────┘  └────┬─────┘  │
│       │              │              │        │
│       └──────┬───────┴──────┬───────┘        │
│              │              │                │
│       ┌──────▼──────┐ ┌────▼─────┐          │
│       │ night_chat  │ │ bot_inbox│          │
│       │    .md      │ │  (JSON)  │          │
│       └─────────────┘ └──────────┘          │
│                                              │
│  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  ┌──────────┐  │
│  │ Plugins  │  │Dashboard │  │Templates │  │
│  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  └──────────┘  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Quick Start

1. Install

git clone https://github.com/judyailab/ai-night-shift.git
cd ai-night-shift
bash install.sh

2. Configure

# Copy the example config and edit your settings
cp config.env.example config.env
nano config.env

# Customize the night shift prompt
nano claude-code/prompt_template.txt

3. Test

# Run a single round to verify setup
bash claude-code/night_shift.sh --max-rounds 1

4. Schedule

# The installer adds cron jobs automatically, or set up manually:
crontab -e
# Add: 0 1 * * * cd ~/ai-night-shift && bash claude-code/wrapper.sh

Modules

Prompt Templates

Plugin System

Extend your night shift with pre-built or custom plugins:

# Enable a plugin
ln -s plugins/examples/system_health.sh plugins/enabled/

# List all plugins
bash plugins/plugin_loader.sh --list

Built-in plugins: System Health, Backup, Git Commit Summary, Morning Report, De-Sloppify

Dashboard

Open dashboard/index.html in a browser. Drag and drop your report files to visualize:

• Agent activity and status
• Round-by-round timeline
• Night chat messages
• System health metrics

Agent Adapters

The night shift runner is agent-agnostic. Switch agents with one config change:

# In config.env
AGENT_ADAPTER=claude-code   # default
# AGENT_ADAPTER=codex-cli   # OpenAI Codex CLI
# AGENT_ADAPTER=aider       # Aider
# AGENT_ADAPTER=custom      # Your own (copy adapters/custom.sh)

Or via CLI flag:

bash claude-code/night_shift.sh --adapter codex-cli

Create your own adapter: copy adapters/custom.sh, implement 5 functions, done. See adapters/ for details.

Prompt Design for Autonomy

The most common pitfall: your agent stops mid-task and waits for confirmation that never comes.

All included templates have an Autonomy Rules block that prevents this:

• Never ask for confirmation — decide and execute
• Never wait for user input — choose the safest option and proceed
• Never use interactive commands
• If stuck 3 times, log and move on

See docs/advanced.md for the full prompt design guide.

Advanced Features

• Completion Signal — agents can say "I'm done" to end the shift early
• Shared Task Notes — cross-round context memory bridge
• De-Sloppify Pattern — separate cleanup pass for code quality
• Anti-Pattern Guide — avoid common autonomous loop pitfalls

Requirements

• Bash 4+ and Python 3.6+
• At least one AI CLI tool:
  • Claude Code (npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code)
  • Gemini CLI (npm install -g @google/gemini-cli)
• A Linux/macOS system with cron and timeout (GNU coreutils; macOS: brew install coreutils)

Safety & Security

• PID locking prevents concurrent runs
• Time windows ensure shifts end on schedule
• Rate limit handling with automatic retry
• No secrets in code — all credentials via environment variables
• Append-only communication — agents can't delete each other's messages
• Plugin timeout — max 5 minutes per plugin execution

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

MIT — Judy AI Lab

Built with real-world experience from 30+ autonomous night shifts. If your AI works harder while you sleep, you're doing it right. 🌙