Paperclip Chat

Interactive AI copilot for Paperclip — manage tasks, coordinate agents, and plan work through natural conversation.

Features

• Threaded conversations with full history
• Claude CLI integration with real-time streaming responses
• Agent handoff — @-mention agents to create and assign tasks (supports sub-tasks)
• Slash commands — /tasks, /agents, /dashboard, /costs, /plan, and more
• Model switching — Sonnet 4.5, Opus 4.6, Haiku 4.5
• Skills system — drop .md files in server/skills/ to extend Claude's capabilities
• Stop button — kill a running response mid-stream

Requirements

• A running Paperclip instance
• Claude CLI installed and authenticated
• PostgreSQL (used by Paperclip)

Install

cd /path/to/your/paperclip
git clone https://github.com/webprismdevin/paperclip-plugin-chat.git plugins/chat-ui

Restart your Paperclip server. On startup, the loader will:

1. Detect plugins/chat-ui/plugin.json
2. Run database migrations (creates plugin_chat_ui_threads and plugin_chat_ui_messages tables)
3. Mount server routes at /api/plugins/chat-ui/
4. Register the UI page and sidebar entry

Navigate to Chat in the sidebar.

Using the install script

# Install
./install.sh install /path/to/paperclip

# Uninstall (removes files, keeps DB tables)
./install.sh uninstall /path/to/paperclip

Update

cd /path/to/your/paperclip/plugins/chat-ui
git pull

Restart the server. New migrations (if any) run automatically.

Uninstall

rm -rf /path/to/your/paperclip/plugins/chat-ui

To also remove data, run against your database:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS plugin_chat_ui_messages CASCADE;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS plugin_chat_ui_threads CASCADE;
DELETE FROM plugin_migrations WHERE plugin_name = 'chat-ui';

Project Structure

├── plugin.json              # Manifest (name, nav, capabilities)
├── server/
│   ├── index.ts             # API routes (threads, messages, chat streaming)
│   ├── system-prompt.md     # Base system prompt for Claude
│   └── skills/              # Skill files loaded into Claude's context
│       └── handoff.md       # Agent handoff skill
├── ui/
│   └── index.tsx            # React UI (page + sidebar)
└── db/
    └── migrations/          # SQL migrations (run automatically)

Adding Skills

Drop any .md file into server/skills/ to extend what Claude knows how to do. Skills are automatically appended to the system prompt on every chat request.

Example: server/skills/my-workflow.md

## Skill: My Custom Workflow

When the user asks to [trigger], do [action] by calling [API endpoint].

Architecture Note

This integrates directly with Paperclip's existing extension loader — it is not a standalone plugin system. It uses Paperclip's database, authentication (JWT), and Express router. See docs/SPEC_GAP_ANALYSIS.md for details on how this relates to Paperclip's upcoming formal plugin specification.