FAQ
Common questions, mostly about what clu deliberately doesn't do.
Why not just use GitHub Issues / Linear / Jira?
Because trackers integrate with each other badly, and a hosted tracker isn't a
useful place to coordinate ephemeral agent work that happens many times a
second. clu is fast, local, and scoped to this checkout of this repo — it
deletes cleanly when you rm -rf .clu/.
Pulling work in from a hosted tracker is supported, though: pipe its export
through clu batch (a stable key per issue keeps re-runs
idempotent). Pushing back out is a one-way sync from a script — clu list --json is the seam.
Can two machines share a clu tracker?
Copy the file. There is no built-in cross-machine sync layer; that's a much
bigger problem and not one this tool tries to solve. data.sqlite is a
self-contained SQLite database — scp it, commit it (don't), or layer
something on top.
Does clu talk to the network?
No. No telemetry, no update checks, no cloud, no nothing. The only network activity is whatever your shell or agent does around it.
Can I use clu for non-agent work?
Yes — there's nothing agent-specific about creating issues, depending one on
another, claiming, and closing. The multi-agent bits (capability routing,
--heartbeat, watch) are opt-in.
What's not in scope?
clu is deliberately small. It doesn't try to be:
- a cross-machine sync layer
- a generic project-management tool (sprints, OKRs)
- a live, two-way bridge to GitHub / Linear / Jira / Notion / ADO (one-way import via
clu batchis supported) - an agent runtime
- a memory system
For how clu compares to nearby tools, see vs beads and vs Claude workflows.