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ShoulderTap is a self-hosted Python service. You install the shouldertap package, which provides the shtap command-line tool, then generate a config and run the engine.

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Requirements

  • Python 3.11 or newer
  • A machine you control to run the engine — it holds all state in a local SQLite file, so no external database is required to get started.

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Install

From a clone of the repository:
This installs the shouldertap package and the shtap console entry point. Verify it:
For development, the project uses uv. uv sync installs the full dependency set including test and lint tooling. See CONTRIBUTING.md in the repository.

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Initialize a config

Generate a starter configuration:
shtap init prompts for an organization name and writes two files to the current directory:
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shouldertap.yaml
Your configuration: organization details, the LLM and Slack settings, server options, defaults for escalation and rate limits, and the expert registry. See Configuration for every setting.
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.env.example
Placeholders for every secret ShoulderTap reads from the environment. Copy it to .env and fill in real values — .env is gitignored and never committed. Secrets are never stored in shouldertap.yaml; the config only names the environment variables to read.
You can pass the organization name non-interactively:

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Next steps

Configuration

Fill in shouldertap.yaml and map secrets into .env.

Run the server

Start the engine with shtap serve.