herdctl

Autonomous Agent Fleet Management for Claude Code

What is herdctl?

An open-source platform for running fleets of autonomous AI agents. Each agent has its own identity, schedules, and work sources. Agents can be triggered by time (interval/cron), events (webhooks), or chat messages (Discord/Slack).

Think of it as “Kubernetes for AI agents” - declarative configuration, multiple runtimes, pluggable integrations.

Key Features

Fleet Management

Orchestrate multiple Claude Code agents working together across your projects. Monitor status, track jobs, and manage the entire fleet from a single dashboard.

Declarative Config

Define your agents, schedules, and work sources in simple YAML. Version control your entire fleet configuration alongside your code.

Multiple Triggers

Trigger agents with intervals (“every 5 minutes”), cron schedules (“9am weekdays”), webhooks, or chat messages from Discord/Slack.

Pluggable Work Sources

Connect agents to GitHub Issues, Jira, Linear, or custom work queues. Agents automatically discover, claim, and complete tasks.

Core Concepts

Agent

A configured Claude instance with identity (CLAUDE.md), workspace (repo clone), and permissions. Each agent can have multiple schedules.

Schedule

Defines when and how to invoke an agent. Combines a trigger (interval, cron, webhook, chat) with a prompt template.

Job

A single execution of an agent. Has unique ID, tracks status (running/completed/failed), stores session ID for resume capability.

Workspace

The directory where an agent operates - a dedicated clone separate from your working copy, keeping agent changes isolated.

Getting Started Install herdctl and run your first agent fleet

Configuration Learn how to configure agents, schedules, and work sources

Why herdctl?

Traditional Approach	With herdctl
Manually run Claude for each task	Agents work continuously, autonomously
Single agent, single task	Fleet of specialized agents per project
No scheduling or triggers	Interval, cron, webhook, and chat triggers
No work queue integration	GitHub Issues, Jira, Linear integration
Context lost between sessions	Persistent sessions with resume capability

Example Configuration

version: 1

workspace:
  root: ~/herdctl-workspace
  auto_clone: true

agents:
  - path: ./agents/coder.yaml
  - path: ./agents/marketer.yaml

name: bragdoc-coder
description: "Implements features and fixes bugs"

workspace: bragdoc-ai
repo: edspencer/bragdoc-ai

work_source:
  type: github
  filter:
    labels:
      any: ["ready", "bug", "feature"]

schedules:
  - name: issue-check
    trigger:
      type: interval
      every: 5m
    prompt: |
      Check for ready issues and implement the oldest one.

Get Started

Ready to run your own agent fleet?

Installation npm install -g herdctl

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