RecoWork

Help the AI agent you already use keep finishing real work.

RecoWork is a layer of work standards and project facts for people and AI agents. It does not replace an agent runtime, host models, run tasks in the background, or manage your API keys.

It fixes the task, professional standards, current facts, review criteria, and handoff so a useful conversation can become work that is easier to continue, inspect, and reuse.

中文说明 · Website · Usage guide

What It Helps With

Real work	What RecoWork preserves	Current template
Move from an idea into a project	Exploration, validation, a direction decision package, restartable parked ideas, briefs, designs, decisions, reviews	idea-to-project
Learn with evidence	Diagnosis, roadmap, practice, projects, retrospectives	learning-engineering
Improve web-page quality	Design direction, responsive rules, component states, self-review	web-design-standard

The web design standard is a separate reusable standard. It is being validated independently, rather than treated as another project-workflow scenario.

Two Environments

Local executable agent

Use this for long-running projects, code, complex learning, and work that needs durable facts or reviewability. RecoWork initializes a root AGENTS.md, working methods, a localized workspace where applicable, and a versioned manifest in the directory you choose. Current facts stay concise in formal workspace documents; confirmed historical versions remain separately traceable in the workspace archive.

Chat / Mobile

Use this for fast starts, temporary tasks, and lightweight conversations. It produces only a start instruction, task execution protocol, and continuation or migration summary. It does not ask for Node.js, a CLI, local folders, automatic persistence, upgrades, or file-level traceability.

Chat continuity is manual: save and paste the continuation summary into the next conversation. When work becomes long-running, collaborative, knowledge-heavy, or auditable, use the migration package to start a separate local workflow.

Start a Local Workflow

In a command-capable local agent, initialize a workflow deterministically:

npx --yes recowork@latest add idea-to-project --target local-agent-project --locale en .

Choose another scenario or locale as needed:

npx --yes recowork@latest list
npx --yes recowork@latest add learning --target local-agent-project --locale en ./my-learning-work
npx --yes recowork@latest add idea-to-project --target chat-mobile --locale en ./idea-work

npx --yes recowork@latest downloads and runs the current package without a global installation. rw is only the shorter alias available after installing RecoWork globally.

Start Through an Agent

For a local agent that can run commands, paste this instruction:

Initialize a RecoWork Idea To Project workflow in the current directory.

Run: npx --yes recowork@latest add idea-to-project --target local-agent-project --locale en .

First verify Node.js and npm. If either is unavailable or outdated, explain the blocker and ask for confirmation before installing the latest stable Node.js. Preserve any existing root AGENTS.md and verify that RecoWork adds only its marker-bounded integration block. Then show the created files and the first working step.

For a pure chat or mobile environment, use the website selector to generate a copyable chat start instruction. Do not use the CLI or simulate local files in that environment.

Read A Local Workspace

For a local workflow, open its Markdown records in the built-in, read-only viewer:

npx --yes recowork@latest view .

The viewer starts on 127.0.0.1, opens a browser when possible, and does not write configuration, regenerate files, or alter the workspace. It supports automatic refresh after Markdown or index edits, shareable document links, full-text search, breadcrumb and previous/next navigation, GitHub-flavored Markdown, and a current-work-first archive boundary. A generated local-agent workflow also instructs the agent to start this command itself after initialization or when you ask to browse the workspace; it reuses an already-running viewer for the same workspace, so users do not need a global install, to locate the workspace directory, or to operate the terminal. Use --no-open or --port 4311 when needed.

Boundaries

• You control the agent; RecoWork does not run it for you.
• Local files stay in the location you choose.
• AI output, recommendations, and changes still require human review.
• RecoWork does not claim automatic memory, unlimited execution, or unattended completion.
• Specific agent products are not presented as officially supported unless compatibility has been verified.

Development

node --check cli/recowork/bin/rw.js
node --check docs/app.js
node cli/recowork/bin/rw.js list
node cli/recowork/bin/rw.js targets
node cli/recowork/bin/rw.js view /private/tmp/recowork-view-test --no-open --port 4311

Product and target conventions are recorded in specs/requirements.md, specs/targets.md, and specs/decisions.md. See CHANGELOG.md for unreleased and published changes.