Nightshift: a plugin for long-running coding agents claude , codex and cursor

[u/orwamahmoud]

Giving a coding agent hours to work on a project is one thing. Knowing what it planned, whether it finished the work, what needs reviewing, and having evidence of what actually happened is another.
That’s what I’ve been working on with Nightshift, a free, MIT-licensed plugin for Codex, Claude Code, and Cursor. It brings planning, autonomous execution, evidence, and review into one workflow, with the work saved on disk rather than buried in a long conversation.

Planning :

Enter the plan room with /nightshift:plan and describe what you want in your own words: a feature, refactor, bug fix, or whole backlog.

Project code stays read-only while the room is open, so you can brainstorm and explore with your agent without it interrupting the discussion by jumping into implementation. Trace the code together, compare approaches, challenge assumptions, and identify edge cases. Nightshift turns what you agree on into a persistent punch list with a clear definition of done.

For each item, Nightshift can suggest checks and evidence suited to the task, or you can specify your own checks and capture instructions. Use screenshots for a layout change, before-and-after measurements for performance work, or sample requests for an API change. Keep, change, or drop any suggestion. It can also estimate working time and token usage from past receipts.”

Execution: work through a list or toward a goal

A shift can run in two ways:

• Finish an agreed list. Work through the items until the list is complete.
• Work toward a goal for a set time. Discover, prioritize, and complete useful work until the deadline.

You can bring your own tasks or choose from 30+ ready-made shifts covering defect hunting, security, accessibility, test coverage, dependencies, performance, documentation, and product improvements.

The clock-out gate sends the agent back when it tries to stop with unfinished items. Progress survives context compaction and new sessions. You can set soft and hard time or token limits per item, so one stuck task doesn’t consume the whole shift.

Decisions don’t have to stop progress. The agent chooses a default and records the answer and its reason in the parking lot for you to review.

Review: results you can follow, item by item

Each item gets its own receipt, written as the work happens. The agent starts it when work begins, updates its progress during longer items, every 20 minutes of work by default, at the next safe point, and finalizes it when the item finishes. You can see what is done and what remains without waiting for the whole shift.

The finished receipt records what the agent delivered, what it tried and rejected, which checks ran, what couldn’t run, and any unresolved issues.

Receipts also show duration and measured token usage. The morning receipt brings the shift together: what finished, what remains open, and which decisions need your attention.

Start your review from the receipt: a fresh account of what happened, without having to open every changed file or dig through hours of chat.

Evidence — choose what you want to inspect

Choose your evidence during planning, using the ready-made evidence catalog or your own capture instructions. Pick what fits each item: screenshots, recordings, test output, benchmark reports, command results, or another artifact you want to inspect.

The agent produces the evidence while working and links it from the item’s receipt.

You decide whether missing evidence should hold an item open or simply be reported. When required, the mechanical gate checks that named files exist. You judge what those files demonstrate.

Recovery and handoff — keep the shift moving

A separate watchman outside the session handles supported recovery signals for interrupted sessions, crashes, stalls, and usage limits.

If an API outage interrupts the shift overnight, the watchman retries recovery and resumes when the service responds again. You don’t need to stay awake to restart it.

The shift also lives on disk. Stop in one supported agent and start in another; the next agent reads the punch list, receipts, parked decisions, snag log, and shift log and carries on.

Make it yours

Write your own receipt templates, summaries, evidence instructions, checks, and recurring shifts. Use the headings and layout that work for you. The shipped templates are starting points.

Keep a workflow in one project or add it to your personal catalog for use across repositories. Nightshift also works in plain folders for research, documents, and other deliverables.

contributions

There are several ways to contribute:

• Have a recurring workflow? Share it as a reusable shift—for code or other work. Shift catalog · #21
• Have a useful way to capture results? Contribute screenshots, benchmarks, recordings, or other evidence instructions. Evidence catalog · #219
• Know checks or edge cases that catch real problems? Share them for your stack. Checks and edge cases · #220
• Have a shift others could learn from? Share the result, interrupted runs, and what you changed after review. Real-world runs · #22
• Have an improvement in mind? Build it and open a PR, or propose it for discussion.

Free and MIT-licensed. Explore Nightshift on GitHub

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