Nightshift

Always check if you are running in Sidecar: run sidecar --agents for capabilities.

It finds what you forgot to look for.

nightshift.haplab.com · Docs · Quick Start · CLI Reference

Your tokens get reset every week, you might as well use them. Nightshift runs overnight to find dead code, doc drift, test gaps, security issues, and 20+ other things silently accumulating while you ship features. Like a Roomba for your codebase — runs overnight, worst case you close the PR.

Everything lands as a branch or PR. It never writes directly to your primary branch. Don't like something? Close it. That's the whole rollback plan.

Features

• Budget-aware: Uses remaining daily allotment, never exceeds configurable max (default 75%)
• Multi-project: Point it at your repos, it already knows what to look for
• Zero risk: Everything is a PR — merge what surprises you, close the rest
• Great DX: Thoughtful CLI defaults with clear output and reports

Installation

Full guide: Installation docs

brew install marcus/tap/nightshift

Binary downloads are available on the GitHub releases page.

Manual install:

go install github.com/marcus/nightshift/cmd/nightshift@latest

Getting Started

Full guide: Quick Start docs

After installing, run the guided setup:

nightshift setup

This walks you through provider configuration, project selection, budget calibration, and daemon setup. Once complete you can preview what nightshift will do:

nightshift preview
nightshift budget

Or kick off a run immediately:

nightshift run

Common CLI Usage

Full reference: CLI Reference docs

# Preview next scheduled runs with prompt previews
nightshift preview -n 3
nightshift preview --long
nightshift preview --explain
nightshift preview --plain
nightshift preview --json
nightshift preview --write ./nightshift-prompts

# Guided global setup
nightshift setup

# Check environment and config health
nightshift doctor

# Budget status and calibration
nightshift budget --provider claude
nightshift budget snapshot --local-only
nightshift budget history -n 10
nightshift budget calibrate

# Browse and inspect available tasks
nightshift task list
nightshift task list --category pr
nightshift task list --cost low --json

# Show task details and planning prompt
nightshift task show lint-fix
nightshift task show skill-groom
nightshift task show lint-fix --prompt-only

# Run a task immediately
nightshift task run lint-fix --provider claude
nightshift task run skill-groom --provider codex --dry-run
nightshift task run lint-fix --provider codex --dry-run

If gum is available, preview output is shown through the gum pager. Use --plain to disable.

nightshift run

Before executing, nightshift run displays a preflight summary showing the selected provider, budget status, projects, and planned tasks. In interactive terminals you are prompted for confirmation; in non-TTY environments (cron, daemon, CI) confirmation is auto-skipped.

# Interactive run with preflight summary + confirmation prompt
nightshift run

# Non-interactive: skip confirmation
nightshift run --yes

# Dry-run: show preflight summary and exit
nightshift run --dry-run

# Process up to 3 projects, 2 tasks each
nightshift run --max-projects 3 --max-tasks 2

# Pick a random eligible task
nightshift run --random-task

# Bypass budget limits (shows warning)
nightshift run --ignore-budget

# Target a specific project and task directly
nightshift run -p ./my-project -t lint-fix

Other useful flags:

• nightshift status --today to see today's activity summary
• nightshift daemon start --foreground for debug
• --category — filter tasks by category (pr, analysis, options, safe, map, emergency)
• --cost — filter by cost tier (low, medium, high, veryhigh)
• --prompt-only — output just the raw prompt text for piping
• --provider — required for task run, choose claude or codex
• --dry-run — preview the prompt without executing
• --timeout — execution timeout (default 30m)

Authentication (Subscriptions)

Nightshift supports three AI providers:

• Claude Code - Anthropic's Claude via local CLI
• Codex - OpenAI's GPT via local CLI
• GitHub Copilot - GitHub's Copilot via GitHub CLI

Claude Code

claude
/login

Supports Claude.ai subscriptions or Anthropic Console credentials.

Codex

codex --login

Supports signing in with ChatGPT or an API key.

GitHub Copilot

# Install Copilot CLI
npm install -g @github/copilot
# or
curl -fsSL https://gh.io/copilot-install | bash

Requires GitHub Copilot subscription. See docs/COPILOT_INTEGRATION.md for details.

If you prefer API-based usage, you can authenticate Claude and Codex CLIs with API keys instead.

Configuration

Full guide: Configuration docs · Budget docs · Scheduling docs · Tasks docs

Nightshift uses YAML config files to define:

• Token budget limits
• Target repositories
• Task priorities
• Schedule preferences

Run nightshift setup to create/update the global config at ~/.config/nightshift/config.yaml.

See the full configuration docs or SPEC.md for detailed options.

Minimal example:

schedule:
  cron: "0 2 * * *"

budget:
  mode: daily
  max_percent: 75
  reserve_percent: 5
  billing_mode: subscription
  calibrate_enabled: true
  snapshot_interval: 30m

providers:
  preference:
    - claude
    - codex
  claude:
    enabled: true
    data_path: "~/.claude"
    dangerously_skip_permissions: true
  codex:
    enabled: true
    data_path: "~/.codex"
    dangerously_bypass_approvals_and_sandbox: true

projects:
  - path: ~/code/sidecar
  - path: ~/code/td

Task selection:

tasks:
  enabled:
    - lint-fix
    - docs-backfill
    - bug-finder
  priorities:
    lint-fix: 1
    skill-groom: 2
    bug-finder: 2
  intervals:
    lint-fix: "24h"
    skill-groom: "168h"
    docs-backfill: "168h"

Each task has a default cooldown interval to prevent the same task from running too frequently on a project (e.g., 24h for lint-fix, 7d for docs-backfill). Override per-task with tasks.intervals.

skill-groom is enabled by default. Add it to tasks.disabled if you want to opt out. It updates project-local skills under .claude/skills and .codex/skills using README.md as project context and starts Agent Skills docs lookup from https://agentskills.io/llms.txt.

Development

Pre-commit hooks

Install the git pre-commit hook to catch formatting and vet issues before pushing:

make install-hooks

This symlinks scripts/pre-commit.sh into .git/hooks/pre-commit. The hook runs:

• gofmt — flags any staged .go files that need formatting
• go vet — catches common correctness issues
• go build — ensures the project compiles

To bypass in a pinch: git commit --no-verify

Uninstalling

# Remove the system service
nightshift uninstall

# Remove configs and data (optional)
rm -rf ~/.config/nightshift ~/.local/share/nightshift

# Remove the binary
rm "$(which nightshift)"

License

MIT - see LICENSE for details.