intent-engine 0.6.9

A command-line database service for tracking strategic intent, tasks, and events
Documentation

Intent-Engine

δΈ­ζ–‡ | English

CI codecov License: MIT OR Apache-2.0 Crates.io Documentation

Intent-Engine is a minimalist, project-specific strategic intent tracking system designed for human-AI collaboration.

It's not just another todo listβ€”it's a bridge connecting human strategic thinking with AI execution capabilities, helping answer two critical questions: "Where are we going?" and "Why are we going there?"

🎯 What is it?

Intent-Engine is a CLI tool + database system for recording, tracking, and reviewing strategic intents. It provides a shared, traceable "intent layer" for human-AI collaboration.

Core Features:

  • πŸ“ Strategic Task Management: Focus on What and Why, not just How
  • 🧠 AI's External Long-term Memory: Persist decision history and context across sessions
  • 🌳 Hierarchical Problem Decomposition: Support unlimited levels of parent-child task relationships
  • πŸ“Š Structured Decision Tracking: Every key decision is recorded as an event stream
  • πŸ”„ JSON-native Interface: Perfect for AI tool integration
  • ⚑ Declarative Task Planning (v0.6): Batch create/update task structures with idempotent plan interface

πŸ‘₯ Who is it for?

Primary Users

  1. Human Developers: Set strategic goals and record project intentions
  2. AI Agents: Understand objectives, execute tasks, and document decision processes
  3. Human-AI Collaboration Teams: Maintain context synchronization in long-term projects

Use Cases

  • βœ… Complex projects requiring AI to work continuously across multiple sessions
  • βœ… Technical projects needing to trace "why this decision was made"
  • βœ… System engineering requiring decomposition of large tasks into subtask trees
  • βœ… Automated processes where AI autonomously manages work priorities

πŸ’‘ What problems does it solve?

Value for Humans

Problems with Traditional Task Management Tools (Jira/Linear):

  • ❌ Focus on tactical execution (Sprints, Story Points), lacking strategic layer
  • ❌ Require extensive manual maintenance (status updates, comments)
  • ❌ Not suitable for AI integration (primarily Web UI)

Intent-Engine's Solution:

  • βœ… Strategic intent layer: Each task includes complete specifications (spec) and decision history (events)
  • βœ… Automation-friendly: AI can autonomously create, update, and switch tasks
  • βœ… CLI + JSON: Perfect AI toolchain integration

Value for AI

Limitations of Claude Code TodoWrite:

  • ❌ Session-level: Only exists in current conversation, disappears when session ends
  • ❌ No History: Cannot trace previous decisions and thought processes
  • ❌ Flat Structure: Lacks hierarchical relationships, difficult to manage complex tasks

Intent-Engine's Advantages:

  • βœ… Project-level: Persisted to SQLite database, permanently saved across sessions
  • βœ… Traceable: Complete event stream records context of every decision
  • βœ… Hierarchical: Task tree structure, enforces completing all subtasks before parent task
  • βœ… Atomic Operations: Commands like start, pick-next, spawn-subtask, switch save 50-70% tokens

πŸ“Š Essential Differences from Other Tools

Dimension Intent-Engine Claude Code TodoWrite Jira/Linear
Core Philosophy Strategic intent layer: What + Why Tactical execution layer: What (temporary) Task tracking layer: What + When
Primary Users Humans ↔ AI (bidirectional) AI internal use (unidirectional) Human teams (collaborative)
Lifecycle Project-level (cross-session, persistent) Session-level (temporary, volatile) Project-level (persistent)
Data Structure Task tree + Event stream + Specifications Flat list (no hierarchy) Workflows + Fields + Comments
History Tracing βœ… Complete decision history (events) ❌ No history ⚠️ Has comments but no structured decisions
Interaction Mode CLI + JSON (AI-friendly) Tool Call (AI-specific) Web UI (human-friendly)
Granularity Coarse-grained (strategic milestones) Fine-grained (current steps) Medium-grained (Sprint tasks)
Core Value AI's external long-term memory AI's working memory (short-term) Team work coordination

Typical Use Case Comparison

Intent-Engine: "Implement user authentication system" (includes complete technical specs, decision history, subtask tree)

  • Lifecycle: Days to weeks
  • AI can resume context anytime via task start --with-events and continue working

TodoWrite: "Modify auth.rs file" (temporary step in current session)

  • Lifecycle: Current session
  • Disappears after session ends, cannot be recovered

Jira: "PROJ-123: Add OAuth2 support" (specific task assigned to team)

  • Lifecycle: One Sprint (1-2 weeks)
  • Requires manual status and progress updates

πŸš€ Quick Start

1. Installation

# Method 1: Cargo Install (Recommended)
cargo install intent-engine

# Method 2: Download Pre-compiled Binary
# Visit https://github.com/wayfind/intent-engine/releases

# Verify Installation
ie --version

πŸ“– Detailed Installation Guide: See INSTALLATION.md for all installation methods, troubleshooting, and integration options.

2. Experience Core Features in 5 Minutes

# 1. Add a strategic task
echo "Implement JWT authentication with token refresh, 7-day validity" | \
  ie task add --name "Implement user authentication" --spec-stdin

# 2. Start task and view context
ie task start 1 --with-events

# 3. Discover sub-problem during work? Create subtask and auto-switch
ie task spawn-subtask --name "Configure JWT secret key"

# 4. Record key decision (subtask is now current task)
echo "Chose HS256 algorithm, store secret in environment variables" | \
  ie event add --type decision --data-stdin

# 5. Complete subtask
ie task done

# 6. Switch back to parent task and complete
ie task switch 1
ie task done

# 7. Generate work report
ie report --since 1d --summary-only

3. Declarative Task Planning (v0.6)

Create complex task structures in one go using the plan interface:

# Create task structure from JSON
cat > project.json <<'JSON'
{
  "tasks": [
    {
      "name": "Implement user authentication",
      "spec": "JWT + OAuth2 support",
      "priority": "high",
      "children": [
        {
          "name": "JWT Implementation",
          "spec": "HS256 algorithm, 7-day validity"
        },
        {
          "name": "OAuth2 Integration",
          "spec": "Google and GitHub providers",
          "depends_on": ["JWT Implementation"]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
JSON

# Execute the plan (creates all tasks + dependencies)
ie plan < project.json

# Start working on a specific task
ie task start 2  # JWT Implementation task

Key Benefits:

  • βœ… Batch create entire task trees
  • βœ… Idempotent: run multiple times β†’ same result
  • βœ… Name-based dependencies (no manual ID management)
  • βœ… Automatic cycle detection

πŸ“– Full Plan Interface Guide: See docs/PLAN_INTERFACE_GUIDE.md

πŸ’‘ More Detailed Tutorial: See QUICKSTART.md

πŸ”Œ MCP Service: Deep Integration with Claude Code/Desktop

Intent-Engine provides a Rust-native MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, enabling Claude Code and Claude Desktop to directly use all Intent-Engine features without manually running commands.

Why Use MCP Service?

Traditional CLI Approach vs MCP Service:

Aspect CLI Commands MCP Service
Usage Humans manually execute commands AI automatically invokes tools
Integration Difficulty Need to copy-paste commands Completely transparent, works out-of-box
Context Awareness Need to manually pass task IDs AI automatically manages current task
Token Efficiency Need to output full commands Atomic operations, save 50-70%
User Experience Need to switch between terminal Seamlessly complete within conversation

Quick Installation

Method 1: Automatic (Recommended)

# Install from cargo
cargo install intent-engine

# Auto-configure MCP server for Claude Code
ie setup-mcp

# Or for Claude Desktop
ie setup-mcp --target claude-desktop

Method 2: From Source

# Clone the project
git clone https://github.com/wayfind/intent-engine.git
cd intent-engine

# Build and install (unified binary with CLI and MCP server)
cargo install --path .

# Auto-configure for Claude Code/Desktop
ie setup-mcp
# Or use the shell script:
# ./scripts/install/install-mcp-server.sh

Note: The setup-mcp command automatically detects your OS and configures the correct file path. It targets Claude Code v2.0.37+ by default.

Manual Configuration

Edit Claude's MCP configuration file:

Claude Code (v2.0.37+):

  • Linux/macOS/WSL: ~/.claude.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\.claude.json

Note: Earlier versions may use ~/.claude/mcp_servers.json or ~/.config/claude-code/mcp_servers.json

Claude Desktop:

  • macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
  • Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

Add configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "intent-engine": {
      "command": "/home/user/.cargo/bin/intent-engine",
      "args": ["mcp-server"],
      "description": "Strategic intent and task workflow management"
    }
  }
}

Restart Claude Code/Desktop, and you'll see 17 Intent-Engine tools available.

MCP Tools List

After installation, Claude can automatically use the following tools:

Task Management (12 tools):

  • task_add - Create strategic task
  • task_add_dependency - Define task dependencies
  • task_start - Start task (atomic: set doing + set as current)
  • task_pick_next - Intelligently recommend next task
  • task_spawn_subtask - Create subtask and switch (atomic)
  • task_switch - Switch tasks (atomic: pause current + start new)
  • task_done - Complete task (validates all subtasks done)
  • task_list - Find tasks by status/parent (renamed from task_find)
  • task_get - Get detailed task information
  • task_context - Get task ancestry and subtask tree
  • task_update - Update task properties
  • task_delete - Delete a task

Search & Discovery (1 tool):

  • search - Unified full-text search across tasks and events

Event Tracking (2 tools):

  • event_add - Record decisions/blockers/milestones (AI's external long-term memory)
  • event_list - List event history with filtering

Workflow (2 tools):

  • current_task_get - Get currently focused task
  • report_generate - Generate work reports

Usage Example

After installation, the experience in Claude Code:

You: "Help me implement a user authentication system"

Claude: I'll use Intent-Engine to track this work.
[Automatically calls task_add to create task #1]
[Automatically calls task_start to begin and get context]

"I've created and started task #1: Implement user authentication system.
Based on project analysis, I suggest breaking it down into these subtasks:

1. JWT Token generation and validation
2. User password hashing storage
3. Refresh Token mechanism

Let me create subtasks for each area..."
[Automatically calls task_spawn_subtask to create subtask #2]
[Begins implementing first subtask]

Key Advantages:

  • βœ… Zero Manual Operations: AI automatically manages tasks, no need to copy-paste commands
  • βœ… Context Preservation: Automatically resume task status and decision history across sessions
  • βœ… Transparent Tracking: All decisions automatically recorded to event stream
  • βœ… Multi-project Isolation: Different projects automatically use their own .intent-engine databases

Technical Advantages

Intent-Engine's MCP server uses Rust native implementation, compared to traditional Python wrappers:

Metric Rust Native Python Wrapper
Startup Time < 10ms 300-500ms
Memory Usage ~5MB ~30-50MB
Dependencies Zero Requires Python 3.7+
Performance Native IPC overhead

Verify Installation

# Manually test MCP server (from project directory)
cd /path/to/your/project
echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"tools/list"}' | \
  ie mcp-server

# Should return JSON response with 13 tools

Detailed Documentation

🌐 Web Dashboard: Visual Task Management

New in v0.5: Intent-Engine now includes a built-in web dashboard for visual task management and monitoring.

Key Features

  • βœ… Modern Web UI: Beautiful interface powered by TailwindCSS and HTMX
  • βœ… Markdown Rendering: Rich text display with code syntax highlighting
  • βœ… Real-Time Search: Instant full-text search across tasks and events
  • βœ… Task Workflows: Visual buttons for start, complete, switch, and spawn operations
  • βœ… Event Tracking: Timeline view of decisions, blockers, milestones, and notes
  • βœ… Multi-Project Support: Run dashboards for multiple projects simultaneously

Quick Start

# Start dashboard (uses fixed port 11391)
cd /path/to/your/project
ie dashboard start

# Open in browser automatically
ie dashboard open

# Or manually access the URL shown in the output
# http://127.0.0.1:11391

# Check running dashboards
ie dashboard list

# Stop dashboard
ie dashboard stop

Why Use the Dashboard?

Perfect for:

  • πŸ‘€ Visualizing Progress: See task hierarchy and status at a glance
  • πŸ“Š Browsing History: Review event timelines with rich Markdown rendering
  • 🎨 Presenting to Teams: Share project status via browser
  • πŸ” Exploring Tasks: Search and filter large task sets interactively

Integration:

  • All changes sync instantly with CLI and MCP tools (shares same database)
  • RESTful API available for custom integrations

Documentation

✨ Core Features

New in v0.4 (2025-11)

  • πŸ” Unified Search Engine: search provides full-text search across both tasks and events, retrieving complete context in a single query

New in v0.2 (2025-11)

  • πŸ”— Task Dependency System: Define task dependencies, automatically prevent blocked tasks from starting
  • πŸ“Š Smart Event Querying: Filter events by type and time range, dramatically reduce token usage
  • 🎯 Priority Enum: Human-friendly priority interface (critical/high/medium/low)
  • πŸ“ Command Rename: task find β†’ task list for better clarity

Core Capabilities

  • Project Awareness: Automatically searches upward for .intent-engine directory, senses project root
  • Lazy Initialization: Write commands auto-initialize project, no manual init needed
  • Task Tree Management: Support unlimited levels of parent-child task relationships
  • Decision History: Complete event stream recording (decision, blocker, milestone, etc.)
  • Smart Recommendation: pick-next recommends next task based on context
  • Atomic Operations: Commands like start, switch, spawn-subtask save 50-70% tokens
  • πŸ” FTS5 Search Engine: Millisecond response under GB-scale tasks, unique snippet function highlights matches with **, extremely Agent-context-friendly
  • JSON Output: All commands output structured JSON, perfect for AI tool integration

πŸ“š Documentation Navigation

🎯 Core Documents

πŸš€ Getting Started

πŸ€– AI Integration

πŸ“– Deep Dive

πŸ‘₯ Contributors

🌟 Unique Value of Intent-Engine

1. Memory Sharing Layer for Human-AI Collaboration

  • Humans set strategic intents (What + Why)
  • AI executes tactical tasks (How)
  • Intent-Engine records the entire process

2. Cross-session Context Recovery

  • AI can resume complete context anytime via task start --with-events
  • No need for humans to repeatedly explain background

3. Decision Traceability

  • Every key decision is recorded (event add --type decision)
  • Future review of "why we chose solution A over solution B"

4. Hierarchical Problem Decomposition

  • Support unlimited levels of parent-child tasks
  • Enforces completing all subtasks before parent task completion

πŸ› οΈ Technology Stack

  • Language: Rust 2021
  • CLI: clap 4.5
  • Database: SQLite with sqlx 0.7
  • Async Runtime: tokio 1.35
  • Full-text Search: SQLite FTS5

πŸ”§ Development Setup

First-time Setup for Contributors (Required)

To avoid CI formatting check failures, please run immediately after cloning:

./scripts/setup-git-hooks.sh

This installs git pre-commit hooks that automatically run cargo fmt before each commit, ensuring code formatting compliance.

Development Tool Commands

The project provides a Makefile to simplify common operations:

make help          # Show all available commands
make fmt           # Format code
make check         # Run format, clippy and tests
make test          # Run all tests
make setup-hooks   # Install git hooks (same as above script)

πŸ“– Detailed Documentation: See scripts/README.md for complete development workflow and automation tools.

πŸ§ͺ Testing

Intent-Engine includes a complete testing suite:

# Run all tests
cargo test

# Run performance tests
cargo test --test performance_tests -- --ignored

# View test coverage
cargo tarpaulin

Test Statistics: 505+ tests all passing βœ…

  • Unit tests, integration tests, CLI tests
  • MCP integration tests
  • Special character security tests
  • Performance and benchmarking tests
  • Windows encoding compatibility tests

πŸ“„ License

This project is dual-licensed under MIT or Apache-2.0.

🀝 Contributing

Issues and Pull Requests are welcome!

πŸ”— Related Links

Next Steps: Read The Intent-Engine Way for deep understanding of design philosophy, or check out QUICKSTART.md to start using it right away.