Claude Crew 🤖

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Claude Crew is a tool for creating autonomous coding agents like OpenHands using Claude Desktop and Model Context Protocol (MCP). Unlike coding assistants like Cline that focus on real-time collaboration, Claude Crew aims to create agents that can process tasks autonomously. It excels in delegating low-complexity tasks and enabling non-engineers to implement features using natural language only.

Concept

Claude Crew focuses on three key elements to maximize Claude Desktop's performance:

• 🎯 Maximizing cost efficiency through efficient context window usage
• 🧪 Prioritizing operation verification through unit testing over browser integration for better token cost performance
• 🔄 Providing project-optimized MCP and context information rather than generic filesystem operations and shell MCP

Requirements

• Claude Desktop
• OpenAI API key for embedding (optional - but recommended for better context understanding)
• Node.js >= v20

How it works

Claude Crew provides a configuration CLI and MCP Server.

The CLI interactively configures project information and provides MCP tools and custom instructions that reflect project information.

Tasks are processed in the following flow:

1. Task Reception

   • Receive task requests from users

2. Project Information Provision

   • prepare tool is automatically invoked to:
     • Update dependencies
     • Update RAG index
     • Pull latest Git changes (if configured)
   • Provide LLM with:
     • Project structure
     • Related source code
     • Related documentation
     • Memory Bank knowledge

3. Autonomous Task Execution

   • Linter and unit tests are automatically executed with file operations and provide feedback
   • Implement necessary corrections based on feedback results

Information obtained at each step is optimized for efficient use of the LLM's context window.

Quick Start

Project Setup

Move to your project directory and run the setup:

$ cd /path/to/your-project
$ npx claude-crew@latest setup

Configuration files will be generated under .claude-crew through an interactive setup process.

Note: Claude Crew can be used with multiple projects simultaneously. Each project generates its own unique configuration, and tool settings are created with project-specific naming to prevent conflicts. For example:

// Project A: /path/to/project-a/.claude-crew/mcp.json
{
  "tools": {
    "project_a_run_test": { ... },
    "project_a_check_types": { ... }
  }
}

// Project B: /path/to/project-b/.claude-crew/mcp.json
{
  "tools": {
    "project_b_run_test": { ... },
    "project_b_check_types": { ... }
  }
}

Tip: For easier project management, we recommend cloning projects that use Claude Crew into separate repositories. This allows you to manage the configuration and state of each project independently.

Claude Desktop Setup

1. Add the MCP settings from .claude-crew/mcp.json to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
2. Launch Claude Desktop and create a new Project
3. Add the content of .claude-crew/instruction.md to the project's custom instructions

Setup complete! 🎉

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues while using Claude Crew, here are some common solutions:

MCP Server Won't Start

If the MCP server fails to start, it might be due to using an outdated configuration format. Try the following:

1. Check if your claude_desktop_config.json matches the format in .claude-crew/mcp.json
2. Update the MCP configuration in Claude Desktop with the latest format from .claude-crew/mcp.json
3. If the issue persists, refer to the example configuration at config.example.json in the project root and adjust your settings accordingly

Configuration Example

For a complete example of Claude Crew configuration including all available options and integrations setup, refer to config.example.json in the project root.

Database Issues

If you experience database-related problems, you can reset and reinitialize the database:

# Clean up existing database containers and volumes
$ npx claude-crew clean

# Reinitialize the database
$ npx claude-crew setup-db

Configuration

The following settings can be customized in .claude-crew/config.json:

Integrations

Claude Crew provides several integrations as extensions. These can be enabled and configured in the integrations section of the configuration file.

Collaboration with Other MCP Tools

While Claude Crew can be used alongside other MCP tools, we recommend following these guidelines:

Recommended: Disable Similar Tools

We recommend disabling similar tools such as filesystem and claude-code.

Reasons:

• AI agents can proceed with tasks more efficiently when there are fewer choices
• Having duplicate functionality may cause the AI agent to consume extra context in selecting the optimal tool

Browser Operation Tools

While you can use browser operation tools like playwright-mcp to perform browser-based tasks, consider the following:

• Browser-based operation verification tends to consume more context compared to unit testing
• Browser operation tools are not recommended when unit tests can provide sufficient verification
• Consider using browser operation tools when unit testing is challenging (e.g., visual UI verification, complex user interaction testing)

Adding Custom Instructions

Currently, there is no built-in functionality to automatically integrate custom instructions for other tools.

Alternatives:

• Manually append to the CLI-generated instructions (.claude-crew/instruction.md)
• Add instructions for additional tools directly to your project's custom instructions

Available Integrations

TypeScript Integration

An integration that enhances support for TypeScript projects.

{
  "name": "typescript",
  "config": {
    "tsConfigFilePath": "./tsconfig.json"
  }
}

Provided Tools:

• {project_name}-search-typescript-declaration - Search for TypeScript declarations by identifier (function name, class name, interface name, etc.)

RAG Integration (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

An extension for searching related documents and information within your project.

{
  "name": "rag",
  "config": {
    "provider": {
      "type": "openai",
      "apiKey": "your-openai-api-key",
      "model": "text-embedding-ada-002"
    }
  }
}

Provided Tools:

• {project_name}-find-relevant-documents - Find relevant documents based on a query
• {project_name}-find-relevant-resources - Find relevant resources based on a query

Memory Bank

Claude Crew creates a .claude-crew/memory-bank.md file to store persistent project knowledge. This file is automatically loaded at the start of each task and contains sections for:

• Project Brief
• Product Context
• System Patterns
• Coding Guidelines

The Memory Bank is designed to be updated throughout project development, serving as a knowledge repository for the AI agent.

Snippets

Since Claude Desktop does not have an automatic MCP approval feature, we provide a script for automatic approval. This is optional, not mandatory.

The snippet provides the following features:

Key Features

• Automatic Tool Approval: Automatically approves execution of trusted tools (those prefixed with claude-crew-)
• Message Sending Control: Recommended especially for non-English input. Enables message sending with Ctrl+Enter (optional)

Usage

1. Generate the snippet:

# Basic usage
npx claude-crew@latest create-snippet

# Disable Enter key message sending
npx claude-crew@latest create-snippet --disable-send-enter

2. Apply in Claude Desktop:
   • Launch Claude Desktop
   • Press Cmd + Alt + Shift + i to open Developer Console
   • Paste and execute the generated snippet content in the console

Options

CLI Commands

Claude Crew provides the following CLI commands:

• setup - Interactive project setup
• setup-db - Manual database setup (useful for reinstallation)
• clean - Reset PGlite database
• serve-mcp - Run the MCP server for Claude Desktop integration
• create-snippet - Create a helper script for Claude Desktop
  • --disable-send-enter - Disable sending message on Enter key press (default: false)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! You can participate in the following ways:

• Report bugs and feature requests via Issues
• Submit improvements via Pull Requests

For more details, please check /docs/contribute/README.md.

License

This project is released under the MIT License. See LICENSE file for details.