A chief of staff for Claude Code in herdr. You hand athena Linear tickets. For each one it launches a visible worker Claude in its own git worktree and herdr space, shows the workers as columns beside itself, and supervises them to merge-ready PRs. It asks you only when a decision is yours, and you can type into any worker at any time.

Requirements

• macOS or Linux, with Python 3.9 or later as /usr/bin/python3.
• herdr 0.9.1 or later (athena init offers to install it).
• Claude Code as claude, 2.1.286 or later for the watch mod.
• gh, signed in (gh auth login), and a git identity: workers push branches and open PRs.
• Go, only for the dashboard (built on first use).

Install

git clone https://github.com/Delitefully/athena.git
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && ln -sf "$PWD/athena/bin/athena" ~/.local/bin/athena   # ~/.local/bin on your PATH
claude plugin marketplace add "$PWD/athena"
claude plugin install athena@athena

Quickstart

athena init   # checks what athena needs, asks for your folders, merge rules and model
athena        # starts herdr if needed, opens the athena space, attaches

Then tell athena what to start: "start abc-101 and abc-102". Detach with ctrl+b q; everything keeps running, and athena brings you back.

Using it day to day

• Start work: tell athena the tickets. It reads Linear, writes a brief, shows a launch card and starts a worker.
• Answer questions: when a worker needs a decision, athena asks you in its own pane and passes your answer on.
• Step in: each worker is a full Claude session; type into its column whenever you like.
• Review and merge: athena checks CI and has a fresh reviewer read each PR. Then you merge, or tell athena to.
• prefix+shift+c (or athena hq): open or focus athena's space.
• prefix+shift+b (or athena board toggle): show or hide the worker columns. To select text in a column, hold Shift while you drag (the column's herdr terminal attach takes the mouse; Ghostty and most terminals let Shift through to their own selection).
• prefix+shift+h (or athena hq restart): update Claude Code and the plugins, then restart athena in place.
• athena hq rotate: replace a long HQ conversation with a fresh one that starts from a handoff written from athena's state, instead of compacting it again.
• athena dash open: the dashboard in your browser: what needs you, what is in progress, what is done.
• Remote Control: athena's own session always connects to Remote Control, so you can reach it from your phone or claude.ai/code; workers never do, whatever remoteControlAtStartup says in ~/.claude/settings.json. A worker that was already running keeps its connection until it next starts.

Learn more

• How it works: the supervision loop, the watch mod, what it may say and what it keeps quiet (logs/watch-suppressed.log).
• Commands: every athena command and flag.
• Configuration: athena init, config.json, environment variables, state files.
• Dashboard: what each row means, and how the page is built.
• Troubleshooting: common errors and their fixes.
• Development: the code layout, tests, the lab, and updating after an edit.
• Decisions: the choices athena was built on.