Cyclops

What is Cyclops?

Cyclops is a JetBrains IDE plugin that lives alongside your code. You describe what you want in (mostly) natural language and the Agents in the app support you along the way. I say (mostly) because, as of 2026, these coding Agents are not capable of doing amazing things with only natural language. They are only capable of doing things.

So the idea is you can use your technical expertise to guide an AI Agent so that you and the Agent together, can do amazing things.

Think of Cyclops as a place where you can:

1. Wrangle your thoughts.
2. Have Agents Research your questions and keep Reports in one place.
3. Either manually, or automatically, dispatch Agents to work in your code.

The Harness

I have had the most success when context that's being passed to an AI Agent is refined through several iterations. In Cyclops, the workflow looks something like this:

You might be wondering, where's the Reviewer? Good question. It's something I plan on implementing in the future.

Installation

The useful path is still simple: start from a prepared issue workspace, confirm the base and work branches, keep the change scoped, and finish with focused validation.

1. Recover the ticket context before changing files.
2. Check branch ownership and workspace assumptions.
3. Make the smallest useful change and write down what mattered.

Sketches

Sketches are the place where you keep your ideas. These ideas may or may not make it into your application. They might be reminders. They might be new requirements. They might be opportunities for you to learn.

• You can Tag your Sketches, and give them a color.
• You can Archive old or completed Sketches.
• You can search Sketches and filter by Tags.
• You can dispatch Sketches to a Researcher for further refinement.
• You can convert a Sketch directly into a beads issue.

Try It Out

Unsure if something is possible? Can't remember how a part of the code works anymore? Sketch it out and send it to the Researcher.

Put multiple features you want in a Sketch and then send it to the Planner. The Planner will break the work down into separate pieces, avoiding context bloat and keeping concern separated.

Research

Research is the place where you figure things out. It's the place where context goes from wide and scatter-shot, to specific and actionable.

• The Researcher takes your instructions and compiles information for you to review.
• The Planner can take info straight from a Sketch or from a Researcher and develop a context-rich implementation plan.
• The Critic reviews the Planners work and determines if it's ready to be implemented; they can Pass a plan, Amend a plan, or Fail a plan.

Try It Out

If you sent a Sketch to the Researcher, you'll see the Report land here. Try Pinning it, Shelving it, or Archiving it. Research Reports come in three flavors: Researcher, Planner, Critic. Each has their own lightweight set of instructions that help them achieve their goals.

Have a Researcher write a report for you. If it mentions specific parts of your code you'll be able to click a link and get to that exact spot in your JetBrains IDE.

Issues

Cyclops is powered by beads (bd), a Dolt-powered issue tracker designed for AI-supervised coding workflows.

The following Statuses are available for use:

• Planning
• Open
• Ready for Work
• In Progress
• Deferred
• Blocked
• Needs Review
• Unshipped
• Closed

Try It Out

When no Automations are configured, you can manually send Issues to different models to work on.

In Automation mode, come visit the Issues tab when a Critic passes a plan, and watch it moves from Ready for Work to In Progress.

Agents

It's difficult to manage Agents, as they can live in many places on your machine. This page is meant to be a view into the common places where Agents are installed. You configure where the app looks and what's Authoritative in the Agents & Skills plugin settings.

You can Authorize Agents and Acknowledge Changes to more easily see which Agents you're aware of, and what their state is.

Try It Out

Visit the Agents page and you'll be able to see the Cyclops agent instructions. If you have your own Agents, and they're configured in the Settings page, you'll see your Agents here as well.

What's Next

In the future I'd like to make this more automatic so even more places where Agents can be installed are discovered and surfaced here.

Skills

Like Agents, Skills can also live in many different places on your machine. This page is meant to be a view into the common places where Skills are installed. You configure where the app looks and what's Authoritative in the Agents & Skills plugin settings.

You can Authorize Skills and Acknowledge Changes to more easily see which Skills you're aware of, and what their state is.

Try It Out

Visit the Agents page and you'll be able to see the Cyclops agent instructions. If you have your own Agents, and they're configured in the Settings page, you'll see your Agents here as well.

What's Next

In the future I'd like to make this more automatic so even more places where Skills can be installed are discovered and surfaced here.

Cyclopes

Cyclopes is the plural form of Cyclops. This is the place where you can see processes that are running or have completed. You get metadata about each process on this page as well.

Try It Out

While a process is running, come visit the Cyclopes page and you'll see it processing. You can cancel the process by using the Cancel Job context action, or clicking the corresponding button.

Product

After your code is released to the base-branch, the Shipper is responsible for updating the release notes. This allows you to get a snapshot of changes which makes it much easier to write release notes for your product.

If you're not using Automations, you can add Release notes individually, exactly as you want, or just have an LLM refine a blob of text into Release Notes for you.

Try It Out

Once the Shipper moves an item from Unshipped to Closed, watch the Product page get update in real-time.

Just did some manual work? Get a text blob, paste it into the Add Product Entry modal, select LLM-Refined Definition, and let the agent populate the notes for you.

Main

To find the Settings navigate to JetBrains -> Settings -> Tools -> Cyclops.

Beads Settings

The application is powered by beads, and this page is dedicated to those settings.

AI Providers & Models

You can assign models for each stage of the workflow.

Agents & Skills

You can set the authoritative locations for Global and Project Agents and Skills.

Automations

These toggles control how much of the workflow the agents carry out automatically.