Experimental Features

Shep ships work-in-progress features behind toggles in Settings → Feature Flags. They’re real surfaces — pages, buttons, CLI commands — but they’re still moving, and what you see today may change or be removed in a future release. Enable at your own risk.

Feature Flags section of Settings — six toggles, only Deployments on by default

After turning a few on:

Same section with Debug, Projects, and AI Code Review enabled

How to enable

The straightforward way is the dashboard:

Open Shep at localhost:4050 .
Go to Settings.
Scroll to Feature Flags (marked Experimental).
Flip the switch for the feature you want.

Settings save automatically. The change applies the next time you load any page that gates on it.

For headless / scripted environments, three flags also have environment-variable overrides:

Variable	Flag
`NEXT_PUBLIC_FLAG_ENV_DEPLOY`	`envDeploy`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_FLAG_REACT_FILE_MANAGER`	`reactFileManager`
`NEXT_PUBLIC_FLAG_COLLABORATION`	`collaboration`

Set a value of true or 1. Env vars only take effect when no DB-stored setting exists; once you’ve toggled in the dashboard, the DB value wins.

The flags

Deployments

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
Deployments	`envDeploy`	on

Adds environment-deployment surfaces inside the repo and feature drawers. With it on, repos and features expose a deploy target panel; with it off those panels are hidden.

This is the only flag that’s on by default — the surface is reasonably stable but still labelled experimental.

Debug

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
Debug	`debug`	off

Shows debug panels and verbose client-side logging across the dashboard. Useful when you’re triaging a hang, a stuck phase, or an oddly-rendered widget — turn it on, reproduce, copy the panel content into your bug report, turn it back off.

DB-only — there is no env-var fallback for this flag.

React File Manager

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
React File Manager	`reactFileManager`	off

Replaces the native OS folder picker (the dialog you see when you click Add local repo) with a built-in React file manager. Useful on systems where the native picker is awkward — remote desktops, Linux without a file-manager backend, or when you want consistent UX across machines.

Projects

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
Projects	`projects`	off

Adds Projects navigation in the left sidebar and unlocks the project-management pages. Projects are a higher-level grouping above repositories — useful when you have many repos that ladder up to one product.

Sidebar with the Projects nav item visible — only appears when the flag is on

The pages are stubby — they may not yet do what you’d expect from “project management.” Try them, but treat the surface as exploratory.

AI Code Review

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
AI Code Review	`codeReview`	off

Adds a Trigger Review action to a feature’s overview tab when the feature has an associated pull request. Clicking it asks the agent to analyze the PR diff and post inline review comments to GitHub.

Useful as a second-pass reviewer on AI-written code — but it doesn’t replace human review, especially for security-sensitive changes.

Agent Collaboration & Supervision

Flag in Settings	Internal name	Default
Agent Collaboration & Supervision	`collaboration`	off

The biggest surface. Unlocks:

/agents — a custom agent prompt editor where you can override the prompts Shep uses for each phase.
/agent-questions — a unified inbox of questions the agents are blocked on, scoped per app/feature.
Supervisor agent — a delegated agent that watches your other agents, intervenes when they’re stuck, and can approve / reject phase transitions on your behalf.
Agent-to-agent messaging — agents can post messages to each other rather than only to you.

Plus an entire CLI surface that’s hidden until this flag is on:


shep supervisor configure       # set up the delegated supervisor
shep supervisor enable | disable
shep supervisor status
shep supervisor approve <id>    # answer a phase-gate prompt the supervisor surfaced
shep supervisor reject <id> --feedback "..."
 
shep intake ls                  # triage queue: items the supervisor flagged for human review
shep intake accept <id>
shep intake decline <id>
 
shep agent message send <agent> "<text>"   # poke a specific agent
shep agent questions ls
shep agent questions answer <id> "<reply>"
shep agent questions cancel <id>

This is the most consequential flag in the set — it changes how agents coordinate. The CLI commands and pages may move or be renamed before this leaves experimental status.

Flagged surfaces summary

Flag	Where it shows up
`envDeploy`	Deploy panel in the repo/feature drawers
`debug`	Debug panels + verbose console logs across the dashboard
`reactFileManager`	”Add local repo” → React folder picker instead of OS native
`projects`	”Projects” nav item + `/projects` pages
`codeReview`	”Trigger Review” button on a feature with a PR
`collaboration`	`/agents`, `/agent-questions`, Supervisor; `shep supervisor`, `shep intake`, `shep agent message`, `shep agent questions` CLI commands

When something doesn’t appear

If you’ve enabled a flag and the surface is still missing:

Hard-refresh the browser (Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + R). The flags are read on page load.
Check your CLI version. Some flags only exist in newer builds. shep version to confirm; shep upgrade if you’re behind.

Confirm the flag in shep settings show:


shep settings show | grep -A6 featureFlags

Check for a feature-disabled error in the UI. Server actions guarded by a flag fail fast with a clear message rather than a 500.