amenbo

amenbo 4.0.0 — You can have your AI open every session on amenbo

amenbo hands you the text that makes an AI tool read amenbo at the start of every session, a plugin's switch and its settings now sit in one row per project, and waiting notifications can be pushed through. The stored data format goes up — read the update section first.

This release changes how an AI first learns about amenbo in a folder, and reshapes the plugin screen around one row per project. Read the update section before you upgrade.

You can have your AI open every session on amenbo

Until now, the only thing telling an AI how to work with amenbo in a folder was text sitting in CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md. Whether the AI read it was up to the AI, and work done without reading it is recorded nowhere. AI tools have a session-start hook — a mechanism that runs something fixed every time a session opens — and amenbo now hands you the configuration to put itself there.

  • amenbo agent-hook snippet claude-code prints the text and where it goes — five tools are supported: Claude Code, GitHub Copilot CLI, Cursor, Codex CLI, and Gemini CLI.
  • amenbo never writes the tool’s settings file — what it prints is a request addressed to the AI you work with. You hand that text over and the AI edits the file; the request asks it to keep whatever is already there and add to it.
  • A folder without the configuration says so, and names the tool — amenbo works out which tool you use from the traces left in the folder.
$ amenbo status
⚠ One step is left before your AI keeps this work in amenbo: Claude Code's settings here do not open a session with `amenbo agent`.
  The text to give your AI: amenbo agent-hook snippet claude-code

Once the configuration is in place the notice stops. If you don’t want it, run the amenbo agent-hook answer no command and it stops being asked — the text stays available from the snippet command whenever you want it. The GUI does the same: you are asked once when you open the folder, and pressing “Give me the text” shows it. In a folder with no trace of any tool, you pick from the five.

A plugin’s switch and its settings sit in one row

  • A row per project — the plugin screen is now one row per project. “Add a project…” adds one, and the switch that turns the plugin on and off lives in that row.
  • Settings open inside the row — pressing “Settings” opens that project’s settings underneath it, so there is nothing to re-pick.
  • An empty required setting shows before you press anything — the row reads “Required setting not provided”. Fill it in and it becomes “Settings provided”, and the plugin can be switched on.
  • The project’s own settings reach the same row — the project settings screen has a “Plugins” section, and a row added there carries the same switch and settings.

Notifications that are waiting can be pushed through

Notifications to plugins normally ride along with whatever write you were doing. Anything that stopped part-way waits for the next write, so with a gap in your work it can sit undelivered. Run the new amenbo plugin flush command to send what is waiting, now.

$ amenbo plugin flush
Nothing was waiting: every plugin's queue is empty.

Smaller things

  • amenbo task show opens with the state — which of the five (todo / in progress / blocked / done / rejected) the task is in. It used to say only whether the task was completed.
  • show counts the comments and previews them — for tasks and for decision records alike.
  • A plugin that reads amenbo back no longer stops mid-way — a plugin asking amenbo about the event it had just received used to fail with an error.
  • A comment notification names the task the comment is on — the receiving side can tell what it is about.

Before you update

  • The stored data format goes up — it migrates automatically the first time a newer version opens it, and a backup is taken beforehand. Older versions cannot open it afterwards, so don’t leave either the GUI or the CLI on the old version (the same installer updates both).
  • dimension rename and dimension value-rename are gone — to rename a dimension, run the amenbo dimension update <dimension> --name <new name> command; for a value, amenbo dimension value-update <dimension> <value> --name <new name>.

Getting it

Open the installer for your OS from the latest release. No admin rights are needed.

  • macOS — .pkg, one for Apple silicon and one for Intel (GUI and CLI come together; first open shows a Gatekeeper prompt: right-click → Open)
  • Windows — setup .exe (GUI and CLI come together)
  • Linux — the GUI is an AppImage; the amenbo command comes from the CLI installer

To update: on the GUI, the “a newer version is available” banner applies it in place. If you installed only the CLI, amenbo update --apply swaps it.

New here? See Start.