How I Built a Cross-Platform Project Management System for AI Agents

TIGER hu Posted on May 30 How I Built a Cross-Platform Project Management System for AI Agents # opensource # ai # productivit # tooling Have you ever tried to manage a complex project through an AI agent conversation? It goes something like this: you ask the agent to build something, it starts working, then you switch contexts, come back, and the agent has no idea what was happening before. I ran into this problem constantly. So I built Project Overseer — a file-driven project management system that works across OpenClaw, Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cline, and Gemini CLI. The Core Problem AI agents have no persistent memory between sessions. They forget context the moment you switch tasks. Traditional project management tools (Jira, Notion, Linear) are designed for humans, not agents. The Solution: File-Driven Context Isolation Instead of relying on the agent's conversation memory, Project Overseer stores every piece of project state in plain text files: projects/my_project/ ├── plan.md # Full WBS breakdown ├── status.json # Current state, risks, dependencies └── tasks/ ├── design.md # One file per sub-task ├── backend.md └── frontend.md Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode Each sub-task is a separate file. The agent only loads what it needs. When switching tasks, it saves current progress, clears context, and loads the next task file. 5-Phase State Machine Requirements Collection — Agent asks clarifying questions before planning WBS Breakdown — Each task gets effort estimation, feasibility analysis, and tech requirements User Review — You review and approve before execution starts Sub-task Execution — Tasks executed one by one with full context switching Project Complete — All tasks done, project can be archived Key Differentiator: Impact Output & Propagation When a sub-task completes, the agent automatically extracts 6 categories of cross-task impact and propagates them to all dependent tasks as pre-start notes. This prevents naming conflicts and design inc